Beef plan

I do not think farmers want meat to the consumer to be more expensive, they just want a bigger share of the final price.
Who is going to volunteer to take a smaller cut, the processor or the retailer? The supermarkets don't give a shite where the beef comes from, neither do the consumers for the most part. If Irish farmers were to get a bigger cut then it's highly likely the price of Irish beef would go up on the shelves, people would buy imported beef instead because it's cheaper and the supermarket would still get their margin. And that's just addressing the Irish retailers, what about the retailers in other countries, where 80% of the beef ends up?
 
Who is going to volunteer to take a smaller cut, the processor or the retailer? The supermarkets don't give a shite where the beef comes from, neither do the consumers for the most part. If Irish farmers were to get a bigger cut then it's highly likely the price of Irish beef would go up on the shelves, people would buy imported beef instead because it's cheaper and the supermarket would still get their margin. And that's just addressing the Irish retailers, what about the retailers in other countries, where 80% of the beef ends up?
Who benefited from the fall in beef prices over the last year or so? The processors, retailers or the consumers? Who ever it is the farmer has paid for it.
 
Who benefited from the fall in beef prices over the last year or so? The processors, retailers or the consumers? Who ever it is the farmer has paid for it.
I understand that. I'm not defending anyone, I'm just saying it's not a local problem or an Irish problem. The big multi-national organisations are calling the shots with the the entire agricultural output of Europe. I've seen it first hand on a small scale, you don't tell the supermarkets what you want, they tell you what they'll give you. If you have something they can't get anywhere else they might negotiate, if they can get it elsewhere good luck and thanks.
 
Very little would allow Beef production to continue but at present prices and pricing structure it cannot continue . When the 3000 workers turn up at the dole office looking for their entitlements it might focus minds . I think a lot of the line staff will return to their own countries if it goes on much longer .
 
Very little would allow Beef production to continue but at present prices and pricing structure it cannot continue . When the 3000 workers turn up at the dole office looking for their entitlements it might focus minds . I think a lot of the line staff will return to their own countries if it goes on much longer .
What's the silver bullet then?
 
Silver bullet is stop all imports of beef from south America into Europe. That would sort out any excess straight away. They have been steadily increasing imports and the price has been falling.

We are fighting the wrong war
 
Silver bullet is stop all imports of beef from south America into Europe. That would sort out any excess straight away. They have been steadily increasing imports and the price has been falling.

That's not going to happen its going to keep growing and growing and going forward it's going to be a big challenge people want cheap meat/food and we are in trouble...there's only so much marketing we can do to sell out hormone free "grass fed" beef
What's the silver bullet does anyone know... if the base stays put something has to give so the suckler cow with the average weanling is in serious trouble, the valves on dairy bred calves has drop and drop substantially in some cases the beef farmer might have to be paid to essentially to take these calves
 
What's the silver bullet then?

The government has proposed the silver bullet but nobody wants to accept it (including myself). It's a reduction in suckler numbers back to 1980's levels. It's to put land which is currently being used for sucklers and their offspring into forestry. The government are currently pushing themselves on this agenda for increased forestry while at the same time holding themselves back by paying SFP to farmers based on history instead of the here and now. If lads were not getting good sfps, they wouldn't be stocking land. They would be looking at other ways to make money from it. Next round of CAP is going to bring big changes. I'm sure that the government are happy to see the IFA's loss of power during this beef price demonstration. It puts them on the back foot for CAP negotiations. Wait until you see, the government will welcome Beef Plan, Independent Farmers and every other group to the table for CAP negotiations and everyone's bargaining power will be weak. It will be a case of taking what we are given. There will be no such thing as "Nobody loses" as we heard from the IFA in the last round. The whole thing will be set up so that you'll either farm efficiently to try to make money or you won't and your only other option will be forestry. It will kill 2 birds with the one stone in terms of carbon reduction. ie. A reduction in cow numbers and an increase in forestry.

Anyone that isn't dairying who wants to keep cattle will either be finishing dairy bred cattle for beef or in a very small number of cases, running an ultra efficient suckler to beef system.

And this is not something that will have to be enforced. 30% of farmers are aged over 65 years and most of these are in sucklers or beef. Only 5% are aged under 35 years. With the right incentives in place, the whole thing will happen naturally and smoothly for them over the next 10 years. People will die and people will retire. If the incentive is not there to go into beef or suckling and there is an incentive to go into forestry or some other type of renewable energy growing, its easy to see what will happen.

The fact is that the government don't want suckler farmers in this country and they don't need beef farmers. They pay lip service to us in a few ways like Teagasc Succession Information events, sitting in on meetings such as the beef protest etc etc. Most of the 3000 workers that we hear that have been laid off in meat factories this week are foreigners. In 2009, 1900 people were laid off from Dell in Limerick and it was headline news for over a month. We heard how it would lead to 10,000 jobs being lost in the limerick area. There was absolute uproar and the state invested billions into the Limerick area in a very short period of time. The layoff's in the beef factories barely made the 9 o clock news last night. These layoffs and the beef sector which farmers are protesting about employ tens of thousands of people directly and indirectly, but it's back page news for our government. The problem is that rural Ireland costs them money because they have to provide services for it. They'd prefer to have people living in towns and cities and have a good proportion of rural Ireland under trees which would meet climate targets and and save carbon fines.
 
Followed by the retired lads giving mad mad money for stores
It might be mad money relative to end price but these stores and calves should be making good money and the finished bullock should be 250 to 300 euro more and everything would work itself out..we have fertiliser and feed coming from other countries and at same time sheds full of barley and wheat here. If i try to buy rolled barley/wheat today, my merchant will try pushing a complicated blend on me. But who is winning ?

Who here wants a 1000 cattle to feed like chickens? and who wants to feed less and let them graze away?.
There is a market there for grazing animals and these animals should not be competing with factory feedlots, which is currently the case.. my wife always buys free range chicken and pays more.. but there is nonfree range beef !
 
I liked your comment mucky as it's TRUE and lads dont want to see or believe it. Rural Ireland is in for some serious challenges in the next 10-15years ,was talking to my relief milker yesterday and we went through who would be around in 10 yrs,I'll be over 50 he will be 60 and the amount of lads that will be finished or dead with no one to take over is frightening and that's within a 3mile radius. So what's to become of farming in general is the next question
 
As a dairy farmer support ing the protest and at meeting s I have been told the same. But I continue to support it as I feel when I retire from dairy at least there might be a chance of beef farming be it suckler of fattening that I could still make a small margin of profit from
 
I got out of sucking 2 years ago and converted to dairying. I considered my sucker herd to be a hobby because of the profit i was making from it. Sad but true. In dairying i feel like i might have a future if price stays right but if i am honest i see dairying screwed in another 10 years when Russia and South America start using all that raw feed to expand there dairy empires.

If i had my way the government would be pushing for more boats and lairage in France so we can ship more calves out of the country to weaken the factories hand here. Less cattle more factory competition. It is sad to see the factories lay off workers at the moment. They walked away from talks and dont give a hell about there workers. As regards profits all you have to do is look at main player , Larry goodman. look what money he has made from farmers with his shares in Blackrock clinic and Galway clinic to name but a few. He was able to buy Slaney meats as well.

Farmers need to stop competing with exporters for calves. I would rather pay a exporter to take my calves out of the country than a farmer buy them at 30 quid a head . Think a lot of dairy farmers feel the same as we would gain it back with better beef price for cull cows down the line.
 
I liked your comment mucky as it's TRUE and lads dont want to see or believe it. Rural Ireland is in for some serious challenges in the next 10-15years ,was talking to my relief milker yesterday and we went through who would be around in 10 yrs,I'll be over 50 he will be 60 and the amount of lads that will be finished or dead with no one to take over is frightening and that's within a 3mile radius. So what's to become of farming in general is the next question

The thing about it is that it will bring opportunities some some and challenges for others. I personally don't know any beef farmers who are blaming dairy farmers for the current crisis. I certainly believe that much more of the blame lies with our government and with greedy meat factories.

A lot of the people out protesting believe that if they don't protest, then it will be the end of a way of life for them. We also have to look at it from the other side. Suckler farming and beef finishing has been going downhill for a long time. Farming organisations figures published tell us that 80% of individual farmers have been farming at a loss for the last 10+ years and almost 70% of the cattle slaughtered in our meat factories cost more to produce than the farmers actually get paid for them. And people are out there protesting so that they can continue this way of life? I know that people will attack me and say that farmers are out there fighting for a fair price, but the simple fact is that our cost of living is so high and our beef is competing in international markets on price, that it's foolish to believe that these protests will actually lead to price increases until cattle numbers fall. No matter how we dress it up, the reality is that these protests are about farmers not wanting to change. They want to continue getting strong SFP's and investing it back into cattle. They want to wash this money through marts and factories so that they don't have big tax bills and so that they can continue to live their lives in the comfort that they know. If the factories paid €5/kg for beef and weanlings averaged €1200/hd in the marts, a lot of these lads out protesting wouldn't be happy. They would be complaining about having to pay tax or having tax audits investigating where they hid the money.

The real issue in Ireland is a way of life. The vast majority of suckler and stock farmers were happy enough with prices up to now. The current crisis could be seen coming many years ago. The problem could have been stemmed by our government. There were ways to direct farmers away from suckling and beef such as biomass, biofuel etc. Instead, the government only focused on dairy and while this had great benefits for those that were young enough and able to take it up, those that were older and who had land not suited to it were left behind and got a double whammy from the extra calves being produced as a result of dairy expansion.

What I am trying to say is that there are opportunities out there for farmers, but they need to be lead and encouraged to change.
 
The more I think of it the whole system is out of kilter. Even cutting out most suckler cows there will be still saying there's too much beef cattle due to dairy beef. We'll still be importing feed and claiming to be grass based GM free etc .in an ideal world we'd have a relatively balanced farming system that would have little to none feed imports and not an over dependence on one sector (dairy as that could end up on a race to the bottom as well ) then we could push the low carbon naturally produced image. Unfortunately that's just a pipe dream nowadays to much short term thinking and most likely brown envelopes to those in so called charge have led us here
 
The government has proposed the silver bullet but nobody wants to accept it (including myself). It's a reduction in suckler numbers back to 1980's levels. It's to put land which is currently being used for sucklers and their offspring into forestry. The government are currently pushing themselves on this agenda for increased forestry while at the same time holding themselves back by paying SFP to farmers based on history instead of the here and now. If lads were not getting good sfps, they wouldn't be stocking land. They would be looking at other ways to make money from it. Next round of CAP is going to bring big changes. I'm sure that the government are happy to see the IFA's loss of power during this beef price demonstration. It puts them on the back foot for CAP negotiations. Wait until you see, the government will welcome Beef Plan, Independent Farmers and every other group to the table for CAP negotiations and everyone's bargaining power will be weak. It will be a case of taking what we are given. There will be no such thing as "Nobody loses" as we heard from the IFA in the last round. The whole thing will be set up so that you'll either farm efficiently to try to make money or you won't and your only other option will be forestry. It will kill 2 birds with the one stone in terms of carbon reduction. ie. A reduction in cow numbers and an increase in forestry.

Anyone that isn't dairying who wants to keep cattle will either be finishing dairy bred cattle for beef or in a very small number of cases, running an ultra efficient suckler to beef system.

And this is not something that will have to be enforced. 30% of farmers are aged over 65 years and most of these are in sucklers or beef. Only 5% are aged under 35 years. With the right incentives in place, the whole thing will happen naturally and smoothly for them over the next 10 years. People will die and people will retire. If the incentive is not there to go into beef or suckling and there is an incentive to go into forestry or some other type of renewable energy growing, its easy to see what will happen.

The fact is that the government don't want suckler farmers in this country and they don't need beef farmers. They pay lip service to us in a few ways like Teagasc Succession Information events, sitting in on meetings such as the beef protest etc etc. Most of the 3000 workers that we hear that have been laid off in meat factories this week are foreigners. In 2009, 1900 people were laid off from Dell in Limerick and it was headline news for over a month. We heard how it would lead to 10,000 jobs being lost in the limerick area. There was absolute uproar and the state invested billions into the Limerick area in a very short period of time. The layoff's in the beef factories barely made the 9 o clock news last night. These layoffs and the beef sector which farmers are protesting about employ tens of thousands of people directly and indirectly, but it's back page news for our government. The problem is that rural Ireland costs them money because they have to provide services for it. They'd prefer to have people living in towns and cities and have a good proportion of rural Ireland under trees which would meet climate targets and and save carbon fines.
Why forestry? Why not tillage! We import vast amounts of grains to keep our production up! Just grow 10 times more grains and the land won't be there for cattle. Production goes down milk beef and lamb value goes up, tillage value goes up.
 
Why forestry? Why not tillage! We import vast amounts of grains to keep our production up! Just grow 10 times more grains and the land won't be there for cattle. Production goes down milk beef and lamb value goes up, tillage value goes up.

Not just forestry, but their reason for promoting forestry is that a lot of sucklers are operating on the more marginal land
 
Not just forestry, but their reason for promoting forestry is that a lot of sucklers are operating on the more marginal land

The government have thrown a lot of obstacles in the way of forestry. With planning permission required, felling licences for thinning taking upto two years , reduced premium, no grant to replant if a disaster hits your forestry to name but a few
 
See in the news where they are importing Irish beef into Ireland. :Whistle2:. Also importing Irish pork, did not know there was a dispute at factories with pig processing as well?
 
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