Beef plan

I can't see this ending well.backing up supplies is what its doing.
I cant blame anyone for trying to improve prices, just cant see it being simple.
On a positive note I have wind of a boat for heavy bulls coming shortly

Where are they heading for?
 
I can't see this ending well.backing up supplies is what its doing.
I cant blame anyone for trying to improve prices, just cant see it being simple.
On a positive note I have wind of a boat for heavy bulls coming shortly

Im thinking the same, im not sure I can see where a win can come from. going home with nothing will be a worse position from where they started out from. If factories decide to leave them at it, then what.

The plus side is that the feedlots must be emptying out and they may have no choice but to pay for stock ? Or is that a very simplistic view of it ? I don't know myself.

Most of the feedlot cattle would be killed up to this point. Restocking would usually start in the next 2 to 4 weeks
 
Intervention doesn't solve anything in the long run, government need to stay out of markets. I think there is trouble ahead with the EU budget under a lot of pressure due to problems in the German economy. As the largest contributor to the EU they won't want to commit to any costly intervention program. Economic growth is only 0.2% in the last three quarters, purchase orders are down. It spells a lot of trouble especially when they already have an artificially devalued currency by being in the Eurozone.

Here's a list of recent announcements of job cuts in Germany. It's not a time to be taking on any more liabilities.

  • Schaeffler, automotive supplier, 900 jobs, 700 in Germany
  • Siemens, 2,700 jobs, half in Germany
  • Volkswagen, 7,000 jobs,
  • Deutsche Bank, 18,000
  • BASF, 6,000 jobs, half in Germany
  • Bayer, 12,000, 4,500 in Germany
  • Ford, 12,000, 5,400 in Germany
  • SAP, business software, 4,000, 1,000 in Germany
With respect 6600 Governments are already heavily involved in the market. Food is political and always has been. Do you know of any famine that wasn’t the result of political/geopolitical interference?

Beef is already heavily subsidized and an artificial market has been established across Europe...hormone bans?

Intervention worked perfectly well for dairy farmers across Europe, so why isn’t it good enough for beef?

Your support for market lead capitalism is admirable but unfortunately misguided, imho. Every first world country interferes with its agri markets, even NZ..
 
Are the farmers stopping lambs, hope to go with a load early next week to Kepak athleague.
 
Still none the wiser as to what the demands are, looked at various social media platforms, doesnt make me any wiser. Asked the local rep and I was told a story. Seems like the beefplan have went to battle without generals or a plan, emotion will take you so far but clear demands are needed for every strike. Everyday the hand of the factories is getting stronger, I cant see any reason why they will bother to engage. Its a pity this wasnt taught through as it could have had serious impact if it was the case.
 
Beef is already heavily subsidized and an artificial market has been established across Europe...hormone bans?

Pity such bans were put in place, majority of the hormones used in beef were perfectly safe and you litterally produced 50% more beef for the same level of inputs. The US farmers would have their natural cattle doing 2.5lbs a day without hormones and the same diet with hormones are doing 4.5lbs of beef a day. mad when you think about it and hormones are allowed in breeding programmes of dairy and suckler cows.
 
I do not see it having much impact really considering all the protesting that is going on .I know one guy locally with a load got in at aibp last night with out having to bat an eye lid.Larry's own lorry put in over 100 cows last night as well .This will have to be carried into next week to have any real impact and it could happen the meat plants might then just close down for holidays then for the week .I just hope they will get something out of it anyway but i would not hold my breath
 
Still none the wiser as to what the demands are, looked at various social media platforms, doesnt make me any wiser. Asked the local rep and I was told a story. Seems like the beefplan have went to battle without generals or a plan, emotion will take you so far but clear demands are needed for every strike. Everyday the hand of the factories is getting stronger, I cant see any reason why they will bother to engage. Its a pity this wasnt taught through as it could have had serious impact if it was the case.
Seems if they set a target price they will be in trouble with the competition authority. Similarly if they are seen to have a national leadership.
Heard Joe Healy putting the phone down on a radio interview when they played a Galway farmer saying the ifa didn't want to represent their concerns, didn't sound good.
The meat factory collect a lot of levies for the ifa and that surely is a conflict of interest.
Likewise those cushy jobs on boards and in Europe are in the gift of the government and that leaves them compromised similar to the unions.
I don't think all the blame is on the factories but these protests are what happens when people feel that the bodies and governments they elected to represent them are not acting in their interests.
I would not pass the picket and the longer people do the longer it will go on.

This morning a man from Castlecomer turned up at Slaney with a load of cattle, claimed he was unaware of the protest and gave a sob story and delivered his cattle. A few hours later he was back again and passed the picket!!
 
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Still none the wiser as to what the demands are, looked at various social media platforms, doesnt make me any wiser. Asked the local rep and I was told a story. Seems like the beefplan have went to battle without generals or a plan, emotion will take you so far but clear demands are needed for every strike. Everyday the hand of the factories is getting stronger, I cant see any reason why they will bother to engage. Its a pity this wasnt taught through as it could have had serious impact if it was the case.

Are you getting any abuse when you drive past the pickets?
 
With respect 6600 Governments are already heavily involved in the market. Food is political and always has been. Do you know of any famine that wasn’t the result of political/geopolitical interference?

Beef is already heavily subsidized and an artificial market has been established across Europe...hormone bans?

Intervention worked perfectly well for dairy farmers across Europe, so why isn’t it good enough for beef?

Your support for market lead capitalism is admirable but unfortunately misguided, imho. Every first world country interferes with its agri markets, even NZ..
Intervention didn't work well here in the past as there is always a massive dump on the market whenever prices look like going up. It is also massively expensive and favours the industry not the farmer. If interference in markets is such good thing then why is the average age of farmers heading for 70? Europe has been operating a protectionist policy within its borders in the interests of food security, now they are changing their tune towards a cheap food policy.
 
I don't know if it will work but it might if lads stuck together, even if it stopped the freefall and opened negotiations on rules.

Ifa could save serious face if they joined in instead of hoping it fails.
 
Intervention didn't work well here in the past as there is always a massive dump on the market whenever prices look like going up. It is also massively expensive and favours the industry not the farmer. If interference in markets is such good thing then why is the average age of farmers heading for 70? Europe has been operating a protectionist policy within its borders in the interests of food security, now they are changing their tune towards a cheap food policy.

I agree about intervention. Don't think long term it's helpful
 
Agreed, we need to be allowed benefit from high prices instead of only being exposed to the downside all the time.

Yes agreed plus your only prolonging the downside by not letting the low prices bottom out enough to curb production.
Beef farming is so heavily subsidised though that usual rules don't seem to apply
 
Is there any theroy that of we come out the worst of brexit and beef is actually e3kg or less that the factories are just preparing lads for this.. if factory prices are good and store prices are good lads buy cattle at e2 kg ...ball bursts lads loose there shirt and go out of business the factories don't want that either
 
Are you getting any abuse when you drive past the pickets?

keep a steady speed up and dont stop :lol:, I actually havnt passed the road they are on locally since it started so I dont know how many are there. I was told who the main BP man is locally and it was remarked - "thats the same as putting a fox, minding chickens":laugh:
 
Agreed, we need to be allowed benefit from high prices instead of only being exposed to the downside all the time.

this is very much how I see it aswell, the upside finishes before it reaches the farm, but we have to share the downside.
 
Is there any theroy that of we come out the worst of brexit and beef is actually e3kg or less that the factories are just preparing lads for this.. if factory prices are good and store prices are good lads buy cattle at e2 kg ...ball bursts lads loose there shirt and go out of business the factories don't want that either

I dont really think the factories really care, maybe they have their money made or they also know, for every dairy cow there is a calf, and at least 40% of these calves will be burgers. thats 20k head a week at worst. Shrewd lad said to me recently, you dont see the factories increasing throughput capacity, and its an accurate point.
 
Still none the wiser as to what the demands are, looked at various social media platforms, doesnt make me any wiser. Asked the local rep and I was told a story. Seems like the beefplan have went to battle without generals or a plan, emotion will take you so far but clear demands are needed for every strike. Everyday the hand of the factories is getting stronger, I cant see any reason why they will bother to engage. Its a pity this wasnt taught through as it could have had serious impact if it was the case.

They issued this at the start of the protest

FB_IMG_1565198770872.jpg
 
Pity such bans were put in place, majority of the hormones used in beef were perfectly safe and you litterally produced 50% more beef for the same level of inputs. The US farmers would have their natural cattle doing 2.5lbs a day without hormones and the same diet with hormones are doing 4.5lbs of beef a day. mad when you think about it and hormones are allowed in breeding programmes of dairy and suckler cows.
Hormone ban was just another way of protecting the Eu beef market. It was the easiest way to stop ‘world market’ beef from entering the Eu market.

Gmo and the banning of certain herbicide/pesticide didn’t stop the import of grains from countries that use them...
 
Intervention didn't work well here in the past as there is always a massive dump on the market whenever prices look like going up. It is also massively expensive and favours the industry not the farmer. If interference in markets is such good thing then why is the average age of farmers heading for 70? Europe has been operating a protectionist policy within its borders in the interests of food security, now they are changing their tune towards a cheap food policy.
It was plenty good enough for the dairy industry, no?
The same market ‘symptoms’ were at play, poor price, overproduction etc?

The average age of farmers is the same whether it’s beef, dairy, tillage etc?

I’m all for no interference in markets once every producing country does likewise...level playing pitch. I won’t hold my breath. Food is politics.
 
Still none the wiser as to what the demands are, looked at various social media platforms, doesnt make me any wiser. Asked the local rep and I was told a story. Seems like the beefplan have went to battle without generals or a plan, emotion will take you so far but clear demands are needed for every strike. Everyday the hand of the factories is getting stronger, I cant see any reason why they will bother to engage. Its a pity this wasnt taught through as it could have had serious impact if it was the case.
I know the price was in freefall but the timing couldn't be worse with a lot of stock approaching 30 months and likewise going overfat, holding these back is going to cost producers dearly.
 
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