Dawggone wrote: » "High input farming doesn't necessarily mean high cost"... If this poor weather continues (I sincerely hope it doesn't) will animals suffer?
kowtow wrote: » You'll need a better reason than that to convince me that the current arrangements aren't the best we've had to date. As far as I can determine we are currently being ruled by a well paid bunch of blokes who drive the little trains in Dublin. They're cheaper than the previous lot and apart from the weather things seem to be going along swimmingly.
Dawggone wrote: New RTÉ DG has to be 'approved' by government...?
Water John wrote: » Ah don't worry, Dawgone, she's a Cork woman.
Dawggone wrote: » Lol. Many moons ago while in a niteclub in NY I remember commenting on a lady's perfume 'It's called Available' she said...
kowtow wrote: » Interesting article, in terms of price & utilisation I have always thought that grass might be more volatile than we like to think. If you take him at his word on costs, our competitive advantage is simply that we're not (yet) in so much debt.
Our farm working expenses before debt-servicing, drawings and tax are $3.50 a kgMS. If we cut out supplements, yes, our total costs would be lower, but because it would result in a massive drop in production, our FWE per kgMS would actually be higher because all of our fixed costs would be spread over less production. For us there is also a value in being able to feed cows at times of the year when grass isn't enough. So there's more to it than dollars and cents. On a cold and miserable July day when it's bucketing down with rain, being able to give the cows an extra "pull" of meal is totally worth it. I'm not pretending to have all the answers. I know there are highly efficient System 1 farmers who manage to fully feed their cows all year round, and good on them. But I tried that 20 years ago and it didn't work for me and I'm not keen to go back. I think the key to making a high-input system work is having more days in milk. There's no point in putting a lot of supplement in but farming in the same way as you did on grass only. Calve early, have a compact calving and milk more cows later in the autumn. We've also taken on winter milking, and while it's not for everyone it's becoming more common given the increasing number of empty cows since inducing was banned. The other key to making a high-input system work is to have high utilisation of pasture grown. It's often stated that grass is our cheapest source of feed - which is another fallacy when you look at how expensive the land is to grow the grass. But regardless of how much it costs, it makes no sense to feed supplement if grass is being wasted and left behind.
mf240 wrote: » http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/78366188/All-grass-farming-not-the-answer-for-me
RightTurnClyde wrote: » Win win
Dawggone wrote: » Paid by sq.m. Supply building, electricity and labour. Paid also when empty. Absolutely no worries. No targets. re.
kowtow wrote: » Much the same here when I'm in charge - at least now that they've banned smoking in the car with kids. Amazing how ruddy faced & healthy they are after a run behind the jeep.
Dawggone wrote: » All national school kids have to run 4km twice a week here, and secondary school have to do 7.5km twice a week.
RightTurnClyde wrote: » Dawg, how do the contracts work, they provide the inputs and you provide housing, labour and hit weight targets. Or are you supplying inputs aswell. Valuable Manure produced there. Brought home 12 tins of confit de canard last year. Yum
Dawggone wrote: » To cheer myself up a little this was my office today. No phone reception and 30*. Pays better than dairy with a fraction of the work. 5, 10, or 15 year contracts available. Lovely.
kowtow wrote: » For Ireland at least (with little / no liquid milk) I think the situation on a + b is very clear - either everybody bears the (loss) of every extra marginal litre of milk produced which can't find anything better than a powder dump as a home, or some system evolves whereby premium supply rights are rationed. Co-op shareholdings are one such system, supplier agreements are another, a formal A+B pricing system would be an even clearer one. But there will always be times when there is more milk than premium customers, such as now - and equally there will always be times, one expects, when there is less. If I start supplying the co-op next week or next month instead of making cats fat and letting the children hold unlimited cheese fights, what commercial rationale is there to support my few hundred litres attracting the same price as everybody else's - maybe I'm missing something here but are we really saying that legally there should be a right for anybody to produce any number of litres and sell them at a price no worse than that offered to anybody else? That may well have been - rightly - the rationale behind the original simple co-ops and creameries but I can't see it washing when the co-ops are processors and agri-businesses rather than a community asset.
RightTurnClyde wrote: » Unless a+b comes from Brussels it won't happen here. Name one government agency, coop, representative body, etc, in Ireland that would call for an a +b system. Not one. Why would it be in the interest of any coop to look for this. Remember there's stainless steel to be paid for. Could it come from Brussels, regardless of what pressure comes on Phil, I can't see him signing off on that one. Why... He has the simple argument of it would only protect NZ and US farmers. Milk on lads.
trixi2011 wrote: » supposedly a + b quatos will be dropped once markets improve most coops started it here last spring before the removal of quotas. We supplie a company who doesn't impose A+B quotas but we are only getting a 17p l base price at the moment
C0N0R wrote: » So if you never sell b litres you will eventually end up never supplying milk?? So when b price is high you supply as much as you can and when it's low pull back at current prices if someone supplied the same as last year what price would they get total?
RightTurnClyde wrote: » That could work both ways, how much milk comes down from the north?. How much milk is coming in from the UK for processing?
trixi2011 wrote: » the way a and b quotas are working for most coops in the uk is milk volume supplied last year 80% is classed as A litres and 20% b litres. If you decide not to produce b litres at x p/l the following year your total supplied volume is down so your A litres are 80% of new total volume supplied. Some companies are paying as low as 6p/l for B litres. Afaik for the uk A and B quotas have no connection to what Eu quota the farm had previous to 2015
Milked out wrote: » He has one brit publication on his side anywayhttps://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/irish-milk-war-lead-british-blockade/
