Future of the suckler cow

The French mentality is France for the French, by keeping the sub's linked to production we eat French beef.
The day production sub's are removed the country side will become less livestock oriented and beef will have to come from somewhere else. I know a lot of farmers who would give up cows if the sub's were to go into the sfp. As to quote Dire Straights 'money for nothing' .
Add to that the country side would start to loss people, closing shops, banks, schools etc etc.
The commune I live in has 8 cattle farms (7cows and 1 bison) and 1 is selling up and 1 is selling the cows.
If the cow sub's were to go how many cows would go?
 
The general consensus is that we don’t get enough for the finished beef and the man producing the calf isn’t getting enough for what he’s doing so no one is making any money but beef is at a price where it can’t get any dearer in the shops or people will stop buying it that is a definite . So does anyone know how much profit the factories are actually making on a finished animal ? . Yes they are doing better than us but theirs is not a simple job either, I’m no expert but I’ve family working in the office of a factory and they tell me it’s tough going . Take the overheads of a factory from the animal comes in the gate until it leaves in a box, anyone any idea what it would cost per head? I’d say it’s astrnomical. I’m no fan of the processors but can anyone actually put figures to any of this? Genuine question.
 
The general consensus is that we don’t get enough for the finished beef and the man producing the calf isn’t getting enough for what he’s doing so no one is making any money but beef is at a price where it can’t get any dearer in the shops or people will stop buying it that is a definite . So does anyone know how much profit the factories are actually making on a finished animal ? . Yes they are doing better than us but theirs is not a simple job either, I’m no expert but I’ve family working in the office of a factory and they tell me it’s tough going . Take the overheads of a factory from the animal comes in the gate until it leaves in a box, anyone any idea what it would cost per head? I’d say it’s astrnomical. I’m no fan of the processors but can anyone actually put figures to any of this? Genuine question.

I don't think it's that simple. There's more than the factories to examine if you want to look at why beef/suckler farmers are not making money. It's very hard to put figures on factory costs. The best thing to do is to look at it from other angles. Factory profits is one angle - most are de-limited so that we can't see what they make. But look at what these factory owners are doing with the profits - massive investments into property, buying out companies that are in competition with them, helicopters, Mercs, big farms of land etc. Look at the money being made on the 5th quarter which farmers don't even get paid for. It's valued at up to €1 per kg. This could be up to €200 extra on a big animal.

I think profits along the food chain paint a stark picture for farmers who are really struggling at the moment. Beyond the meat processors that we hear about all the time, there are pharmaceutical companies like Norbrook or food manufacturers like Alltech that are making Ireland's rich list on the back of profits from farmers. Look at Musgrave and Tesco - both have increased profit by over 40% year on year in the last 2 years. What got cheap in this time? Plastic, no, steel, no, chemicals, no. Food, that's what they squeezed each year so that they could make extra profits. Farmers continually operate below the cost of production to allow these companies make big profits.

It goes beyond all of these examples too. The farmer has to take responsibility too. They should be operating efficiently (80% of beef farmers aren't). They should be lobbying for the government to create more markets, for the government to secure greater levels of live export. They should have proper representation. Many people don't think that the main farmer representative organisations are currently fit for purpose.

It's a sad tale when a farmer is sitting on €1 million worth of land, works 80 hours a week on it and can only make €10k in profit. How much can the farmer be squeezed by the factories, the retailers and the consumers before he or she packs it in?
 
Very well written piece there @muckymanor. Just to add an observation I've long noted while taking cattle into a factory is, look into the employee car park. It's farmers are paying for those cars, look at the cattle trucks, the reefers, the trucks hauling away the offal etc. Then theres getting the food to the shops and the shops employees stocking shelves and serving customers. All these people have jobs directly because of farmers, they are all getting paid off the farmers back and they are all eating because of farmers. Now I'm not on a rampage against non farmers, far from it. My point is all those folks I've mentioned all make money to greater or lesser extents all from farming. It may not be directly from a farm or farmer but it sure as hell is off the farmers back. Supermarkets have huge profits and mucky covered that very well in his post above. We feed the world with the highest quality of food humanity has ever enjoyed and yet for our work we get thrown the scraps from which we live or try to live on.
 
Part of it is ourselves to blame! We play into their hands by increasing the amount we produce and reducing its cost/worth.
The majority of our increase of production especially in beef is our reliance on imported grain.
Increase the land in arable use, which will reduce the amount of beef and milk. It'll decrease our risk of price volatility as we have less dependence on exports and imports.
Decrease start up capital as less need for concrete tanks slats cubicles etc with more straw bedding.
And we will have a more diverse environment.
 
I bought around 320 grams of sliced ham at the counter in a local Supervalu the other day. The price per kilo was €23.50!! So it's not just the beef farmer getting screwed.
 
Maybe put some more land in biomass as well. Lengthen the period of grants to 50 years for broad leaf plantations. Reducing output as @jcb411abuser says is the way to go.
It’s cheap food that the worlds governments want, they could stop below cost selling of food tomorrow if they felt like it but once the urban voter is happy and food is affordable then they don’t care about farmers once we have just enough to survive
 
It’s cheap food that the worlds governments want, they could stop below cost selling of food tomorrow if they felt like it but once the urban voter is happy and food is affordable then they don’t care about farmers once we have just enough to survive
I'm afraid it's always going to be that way
 
I'm afraid it's always going to be that way
Me too that’s why I mentioned it. It’s only when there will be a major international food scarcity caused by weather, war or some sort of health scare that it will rocket. The government don’t seem too bothered about the suckler cow and the future of it, they don’t contribute enough to exports, beef contributes hugely to exports but there are plenty fattening stock from the bull calves from the expanding dairy herd to keep the beef kill numbers high, once the dairy herd numbers stay where they are or increase more then there will always be enough beef there, that will keep the government and factories happy, all be it not the same quality of animal but does the consumer really care, burgers and mince are from poorer quality cuts, prime steaks are made only 10% of the meat sold(might be wrong there). Is the average suckler herd in Ireland is 17 cows, kind of hard to blame the government for not firing money at that. I don’t think it’s the factories that make the killing from beef, it’s the retailers I blame 100% as their mark up is phenomenal. It’s the shops that lads need to protest at and not the factories but as I said earlier you won’t get government backing as cheap food keeps the majority of voters in urban areas happy.
 
It’s cheap food that the worlds governments want, they could stop below cost selling of food tomorrow if they felt like it but once the urban voter is happy and food is affordable then they don’t care about farmers once we have just enough to survive

That's it exactly! That's why we have the CAP payments. That's why they will give financial support in times of crisis.

But herein lies the problem....

We farmers produce food at very low cost (meat, dairy, cereals). The world relies on us for to feed its population and keep a steady supply of food. The total cost of @6600 's bit of ham (or any type of meat) including feeding the animal, slaughter processing, transport and retailing was less than €10/kg. The farmer is lucky to see €4/kg for it and it costs him €3.80/kg to produce it. (20c/kg profit) The factory slaughterer/processor probably gets €8/kg for it and it costs him €6/kg to get it out his door onto the shelf. (so €2/kg profit) and the retailer gets €23/kg from it and it probably costs him €2/kg to transport and retail it meaning that he can have €13/kg in profit from it.

Now please don't criticise me on my figures above. I pulled both the retailer's and the processor's figures from my head. The only accurate figure is the farmer's figure. What it highlights is that, we as farmers, are well able to produce the food cheaply for our governments. There's loads of room in it for us to make a sustainable living. But somewhere along the line, the retailers and the processors have made themselves the most important people in the food production equation.

The government is indirectly controlling the price of food. But in doing this, they are controlling what the primary producer gets for it but have no control over the processors or the retailers.

Food would be very cheap all over the world if the processors and the retailers only got the same margin per kg as the farmers get!
 
It’s cheap food that the worlds governments want, they could stop below cost selling of food tomorrow if they felt like it but once the urban voter is happy and food is affordable then they don’t care about farmers once we have just enough to survive
Which is why we've got to do what we can to control the price. We own the land and decide what to do with it.
Certain things we do are insane when you think on it.
Milk powder is my pet hate. We produce the milk it costs 17c sell it for 30c, and buy back the equivalent protein and fat for 40c or 50c! WHY!? It makes absolutely no sense. We are literally gifting the processor extra business for nothing and cost ourself money both in increased cost of feeding the calf and because we increase the volume being processed we devalue all the milk being sold.
Feed your calves 6 litres a day of whole milk, average spring production would be around 24 litres, that comes down to 18, so milk supply is evened out over the worst milk months and there is zero excuse to reduce the milk price.
 
That's it exactly! That's why we have the CAP payments. That's why they will give financial support in times of crisis.

But herein lies the problem....

We farmers produce food at very low cost (meat, dairy, cereals). The world relies on us for to feed its population and keep a steady supply of food. The total cost of @6600 's bit of ham (or any type of meat) including feeding the animal, slaughter processing, transport and retailing was less than €10/kg. The farmer is lucky to see €4/kg for it and it costs him €3.80/kg to produce it. (20c/kg profit) The factory slaughterer/processor probably gets €8/kg for it and it costs him €6/kg to get it out his door onto the shelf. (so €2/kg profit) and the retailer gets €23/kg from it and it probably costs him €2/kg to transport and retail it meaning that he can have €13/kg in profit from it.

Now please don't criticise me on my figures above. I pulled both the retailer's and the processor's figures from my head. The only accurate figure is the farmer's figure. What it highlights is that, we as farmers, are well able to produce the food cheaply for our governments. There's loads of room in it for us to make a sustainable living. But somewhere along the line, the retailers and the processors have made themselves the most important people in the food production equation.

The government is indirectly controlling the price of food. But in doing this, they are controlling what the primary producer gets for it but have no control over the processors or the retailers.

Food would be very cheap all over the world if the processors and the retailers only got the same margin per kg as the farmers get!
It's like what how I believe the EU works. It's all well and good producing a product and having a market for it but unless you actually control the sale of it its no good.
So say Ireland can ship beef to any country in Europe, we have to compete with the domestic products for shelf space so either we are better or cheaper, but if we own the shop we can put on our own products and sell at the same price and get the profit on the sale and bring the profit home.
 
So for instance we don't have any share in any of the major food outlets in Ireland anymore as farmers. Supermarkets rule the roost and our success is none of their concern. But if we owned the shops we could control the prices and how much is taken between the farm to the fork.
It's of no use to just own the land the animals or the processing we have to control the outlets too if we want it to work in our interests
 
Back
Top