I know an awful lot of good efficient suckler farmers that have an off farm job. I don't think it's fair to to pigeon hole those that work off farm. A lot of the inefficient ones that I know are lads that have hefty SFP's, maybe a working wife, or those that appear not to have big spends on life such as kids, mortgages or cars. .
A old lad that I was talking to yesterday about sucklers and beef said that there's plenty of money in it. He pointed out the value of SFP and ANC payments. Right or wrong, he described that a huge portion of this money, which is supposed to be an income supplement, is "Laundered" by a huge proportion of farmers just for the sake of not having to pay tax on it.
Edit: Just to add to this. there's a quote on today's Indo from a beef farmer. I think he hits the nail on head about why the suckler sector is not profit driven:
"I'm 55 years old and when I go to the mart, I'm regarded as a young fellow".
The vast majority of people, when they go over 55, they don't drive forward. Certainly if I get that far, I'd hope to be taking it down a gear. There's no doubt that the figures for suckler farmers get worse and worse. Is it any wonder when a good portion of the young suckler farmers with hunger and drive have gone into dairy.
We get figures on profit fed to us by Teagasc and private planners. They are supposed to be average figures. But are they really averages? Teagasc and private planners only survey the people who engage with them. They only do profit monitors for the people who are in Suckler KT groups unless other people request them. You only go to a planner for help if you want to improve things. I know loads of lads who never joined REPS and who certainly didn't join Glas. One lad that I know is 74, actively farming 80 acres of land. When I asked him about his Glas measures, he told me that Glas is just an information collection service for the government like Reps was before it and he doesn't want anyone knowing his business. This attitude is rife among a huge proportion of our farmers.
There are ~ 70000 suckler farmers in this country. There's 50,000 farmers in Glas and that includes Dairy and Tillage farmers. So there might only be 25000 suckler farmers in Glas. If suckler farmers wanted to push forward, develop more profit and develop their farms, then surely they would be trying to make as much money from as many schemes as possible. The majority don't want that or don't need to.
There's talk of a €200 payment per suckler cow. While I could do with the money so badly, I'm not in favour of it. It will only mean that some farmers will sell their weanlings for less. It'll be of no benefit to the suckler farmer or the beef finisher and all of it + some more will end up in beef processors pockets! There has to be better ways to support suckler farmers.