IFA and Factory Bitching thread.

duffysfarm wrote: »

Why are the ifa willing to take on the vulture funds when the beef factories are taking advantage of the bad weather and screwing farmers black and blue for so long now. Nobody seems to be saying anything about this. I mean a certain beef Barron has sheds and sheds full of cattle. If supply gets scarce he has his own supply rather than have to pay more to the market. Also a poor price in the factories means stores are cheaper which he also buys which feeds into the problem so again it suits him here to keep beef prices down!

Off topic but your right there afraid of there ****e to upset Larry

wrangler wrote: »

If beef was €3 this week farmers would still be sending them in, I cant't believe he's still offering 3.80

If processors drop it much below present prices live export come on line even to the UK. Lad above in Louth is again advertizing for Fr bullocks for export. At 3/KG we be sending them live to North Africa and shooting most calves at birth.

wrangler wrote: »

If beef was €3 this week farmers would still be sending them in, I cant't believe he's still offering 3.80

I was in a lorry with a factory agent the other day. He said you would not believe the amount of lads who let the cheque they get from the factory go out of date. Whinging over price on the day and haggling over a couple of cent and then not cashing the cheque. The mind boggles

duffysfarm wrote: »

Why are the ifa willing to take on the vulture funds when the beef factories are taking advantage of the bad weather and screwing farmers black and blue for so long now. Nobody seems to be saying anything about this. I mean a certain beef Barron has sheds and sheds full of cattle. If supply gets scarce he has his own supply rather than have to pay more to the market. Also a poor price in the factories means stores are cheaper which he also buys which feeds into the problem so again it suits him here to keep beef prices down!

Three things on this:-

1. Why should a certain beef baron (or anyone else in business) pay more for their raw material than suppliers of raw material are willing to sell for????

2. When running any business it is bad policy to allow yourself to become overly dependent on one source of supply, to do so leaves you at risk of unwelcome price increases so if the certain beef baron is mitigating this risk by maintaining an independent source of supply he can tap when prices are above what he is prepared to pay that is nothing more than good business management / risk mitigation.

3. I can never understand why farmers, who in the past had grouped together in co-op's, don't develop their own beef factories in order to reduce their own reliance on selling to a certain beef baron!!!

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Three things on this:-







3. I can never understand why farmers, who in the past had grouped together in co-op's, don't develop their own beef factories in order to reduce their own reliance on selling to a certain beef baron!!!

Then we'd have nothing to give out about

coolshannagh28 wrote: »

Larry is having it both ways ; dropping the beef price like a stone and snapping up cheap land from vulture funds.

No one party, unless there is a monopoly in place, can manipulate the price.

As I understand it Larry publishes the price at which he is prepared to buy beef on a daily (or regular basis) and farmers, having looked at all options available to them (not sell at that time or sell to someone else) choose whether or not they wish to sell to Larry at the price he is prepared to pay.

If he gets enough farmers to sell to him at that price why would he offer to pay more?

wrangler wrote: »

Be interesting to see your reaction if IFA asked farmers to withdraw supplies because that is the only solution.....whinge on if you like .
bravado like yours is very shallow
Very easy to stop them buying cheap...don't sell

Cool the jets I agree with u on withdrawing supplies be it beef or milk,few days with no milk or beef would be the only language manufactures will understand but farmers are too smart for there own good and this won’t happen .on the ifa been all over the vulture fund case and hiding away from the factories I stand over it ,it’s a fight deep down they don’t want

Turnipman wrote: »

In which case there's absolutely nothing to stop the IFA from paying off the debt from its substantial reserves and taking over the lads' loan.

Seeing as the IFA's "professional advisers" have advised that there's a credible proposal on the table, then it's a complete no-brainer!

So c'mo IFA, quit the posturing and put your money where your mouth is.

Excellent point, but this will never happen. The IFA aka the Irish Factories Association is only interested in one thing which is lining their own pockets with the €13 million which irish farmers are stupidly giving them every year and having a good time with it.

The salaries and pensions in the IFA are so obscene and embarrasing that they wont even publish them.

If the lads in this case wont pay back the money they borrowed then the land should be taken off them.
But of course both they and the useless sh*tes in the IFA think that someone else should pick up the bill.

K.G. wrote: »

Because margins in yhe beef game are small ironically enough.its just that larry has by hook or by crook put himself in a dominatant postion in this country.you have to understand that the majority of beef farming is a lifestyle choice rather than an business decision

That's fine and in fact admirable if it's what you genuinely want to do with your life but if it's your chosen lifestyle why moan about it? No one is forcing you to spend your life at it unless you are such a weakling that you are unable to say to Mammy and Daddy that you want more out of the one life you have than to merely "keep the farm going", how miserable a future that must be for a young person in their 20's to be looking forward to???

Also, if it's a lifestyle choice not a commercial business why try to play by and complain about the rules of the commercial game e.g.:-

1. That the price you can sell your product for is less than you'd like. - Either do something about it (individually by changing the product you produce or collectively by setting up a co-op type meat processing factory) or stop complaining because after all you're not running it as a business.

2. That the price of land is too high or you borrowed too much to buy land and now can't pay it back. - It literally took me 3 minutes to work out you shouldn't pay more than €1,500 an acre if you're producing €200 a year in profit (available cashflow) per annum with which to make loan repayments and you want to avoid getting into financial distress. Just because your neighbours are prepared to make reckless financial decisions doesn't mean you have to follow them, especially if you've chosen to run a lifestyle business.

mahoney_j wrote: »

Cool the jets I agree with u on withdrawing supplies be it beef or milk,few days with no milk or beef would be the only language manufactures will understand but farmers are too smart for there own good and this won’t happen .on the ifa been all over the vulture fund case and hiding away from the factories I stand over it ,it’s a fight deep down they don’t want

IFA have always had guys to help with negotiations , nothing new there, I've used them myself and referred people to them.
I never wanted to be bothered by beef price either but it wasn't because i was afraid of anything apart from maybe farmer apathy. It's a waste of time, why bother, it's a dead end.
While people think that TDs get up every day wondering how much money we'll give the farmers to day we won't need representation..
Meanwhile I struggle here on a tax free income......a concession that the TDs must have given me without being asked that;s subsidised by a generous CPO land deal that the same TDS must have said we deserved and then santa claus delivered a nursing home fair deal scheme for rich land owning farmers.
All this must be true because if you believe you guys, sure begorrah, IFA are doing nothing
I can tell you I'm laughing all the way to the bank

White Clover wrote: »

Was it Charlie or Albert that put him going again?

Did you even have to ask. Charlie of course.

Who2 wrote: »

I’m I the only one here thinking this is more political and we’re giving Larry too much flak on this one. He’s in the business of buying and processing meat, he would be an absolute clown to pay more than he has to. The price across the world for beef and nearly any farm produce is being kept low. We can say it’s being made up with subs but the truth is that it isn’t. The retailers have the arse pulled out of it in regards to profit, they are going to have a fair share of waste as farm produce is mainly perishable, but they seem to have the main chunk. But is it any more of a profit margin than other industries such as a clothes shop or hardware store that needs to keep operating profitably. We are so far down the ladder that nobody gives a monkeys, we have no real voice and realistically there is going to be nothing done until we all stop producing and at that stage there is going to be a lack of will amongst the many but there will be a few who will push on. At that stage Larry will probably have bought up most of the ground more of a necessity to secure supply than just greed.

Young people were never in as good a position to get away from farming, even the ones farming have third level education, I referred earlier to a wedding I was at last weekend, all professionals and if you saw and heard the lifestyle of the young people there you'd see the gap between farming and reality.
Thankfully the lack of young farmers available is reflecting the move away from farming

_Brian wrote: »

Cattle are cheap because lads are way over producing.
Cut each farm production by 20-30%, prices would lift and lads would have profits from stock.

Continuing to oversupply makes beef cheap.

Beef needs a rethink, real markets are dwindling and so we need to produce less stock or it will just get cheaper and cheaper.

It’s not that simple. 20% cut here can easily be filled from some other country. A week with no food and all the revs and restrictions would soon disappear. If we got a 5% increase in a 20% cut in numbers we’d be doing well, and even at that beef production isn’t going to provide a decent return.

mahoney_j wrote: »

I only see the beef industry going one way ,one giant big cartel controlled by one man .its starting already ,factory feedlots ,these are getting more common with farmers been offered set figure for sheds ,extra if silage if included .farmer feeds ainmals etc I don’t like the idea but it’s about the only way I see beef men been able to secure a set margin or income from beef

Same as any industry, it has to move with the times, survival of the fittest.
Next CAP reform will be interesting

Say my name wrote: »

Or go the Welsh route and fight to hold every independent abattoir and butchers shop and get government support for same.
https://www.globalmeatnews.com/Article/2018/05/16/UK-abattoirs-at-risk


It's too late for that here since "we've moved with the times" but that's what's currently happening over there now especially since Larry is pushing in there now too.
The Irish have this mentality that bigger is better. Probably comes from the dept only wanting a few factories to inspect and not multiple small ones.
Or maybe we've an inferiority complex to prove to the world, anyway it's a shortcoming.

A lot of the local small abattoirs were closed by the local authorities vets who made it so hard to comply, in our locality 5 were closed by the council vet and stopped a little industry for local farmers who supplied them with stock, now the stock goes to the next county to be slaughtered and lorry back to the local butcher.

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Why couldn't they comply with the standards? Was it too expensive or didn't they have the ability to comply?

Is it possible they used the inspections as an excuse to close what were inefficient operations anyway?

If by "they" you mean the dept and by "inefficient operations " you mean not controlled by the right people then yes.

Je_suis_Jean wrote: »

Why couldn't they comply with the standards? Was it too expensive or didn't they have the ability to comply?

Is it possible they used the inspections as an excuse to close what were inefficient operations anyway?

Inefficient no, it was making the over heads to high and cheaper to buy from the likes of uncle Larry and the big factory, the amount of work that was created in the local community for part time farmers who worked as butchers and the suppliers who were local. We used to only travel 6miles with lambs and no travel 40 miles, another big loss was getting your own animal slaughtered for the freezer has died and was a big tradition.

I see supervalue offers for this week..Hereford steak @ 15e per kg and mince @ 10 per kg. These are 'offers'.
We selling beef at sub 3.80 next week. Something seriously broken and no IFA action.

alps wrote: »

kk.man wrote: »

I see supervalue offers for this week..Hereford steak @ 15e per kg and mince @ 10 per kg. These are 'offers'.
We selling beef at sub 3.80 next week. Something seriously broken and no IFA action.

https://shop.supervalu.ie/shopping/meat-poultry/c-150100015

Mince is at €5/kg.....not much in the value chain there..

Your competitor just may be other meats...pork, chicken etc...While they consistently sell for €5 per kg, are you confident that the consumers has the willingness or the pocket to give you what you require?

Can I ask, how much do you require to make a satisfactory margin, and do you think there exists a route to market that could capture that margin for all of the meat from all of our animals?

I think it reads 5euro for 500gms..thus 10euro. They have stopped the price per kg on the adds.

When it comes to fresh meat supermarkets do not do a lost leader!