the journal this week

Heifer calves selling at 500€ now and maidens @1100€ would a lad be mad to keep these if not planning on expanding as surely the price is gonna drop when there is few getting into milk and noone expanding? Even to put alot of beef bulls through the cows this year after maybe a week of dairy? Hard to know what to do but know for sure heifer calves next year wont be half the trade they are this year , by logic anyway
 
Heifer calves selling at 500€ now and maidens @1100€ would a lad be mad to keep these if not planning on expanding as surely the price is gonna drop when there is few getting into milk and noone expanding? Even to put alot of beef bulls through the cows this year after maybe a week of dairy? Hard to know what to do but know for sure heifer calves next year wont be half the trade they are this year , by logic anyway
I think if you have what you need u be mad not sell.
 
Heifer calves selling at 500€ now and maidens @1100€ would a lad be mad to keep these if not planning on expanding as surely the price is gonna drop when there is few getting into milk and noone expanding? Even to put alot of beef bulls through the cows this year after maybe a week of dairy? Hard to know what to do but know for sure heifer calves next year wont be half the trade they are this year , by logic anyway
I think that trade has fallen a good bit in the last week or 2 since the announcement. Sexed semen maybe and then beef straws after that if your numbers are where you want them.
 
I think that trade has fallen a good bit in the last week or 2 since the announcement. Sexed semen maybe and then beef straws after that if your numbers are where you want them.
If going with beef straws I would suggest to try shorthorn straws if u get in touch with the shorthorn marketing company they will give u info (I think a discount on straws) and also put u in contact with buyers for your calves. a friend of dads got a shorthorn bull off dad one year and kept 3 heifers out of his friesian and they milk as good as some of his top cows but we warned him to keep a heifer off them cus the second cross is a disaster...
 
If going with beef straws I would suggest to try shorthorn straws if u get in touch with the shorthorn marketing company they will give u info (I think a discount on straws) and also put u in contact with buyers for your calves. a friend of dads got a shorthorn bull off dad one year and kept 3 heifers out of his friesian and they milk as good as some of his top cows but we warned him to keep a heifer off them cus the second cross is a disaster...
Warned him not to keep a heifer is it? Was planning on using a few shorthorn dairy straws alright see eurogene selling a nice selection of coloured breeds this year
 
Sold may and June calving heifers here for €1500 to a lad that bought them over the phone! Can’t believe it the world’s gone mad Ted. A new entrant to milk.
Is he going milking them on over the winter or what? If it is for a spring calving herd, then surely that is a disaster?
 
Warned him not to keep a heifer is it? Was planning on using a few shorthorn dairy straws alright see eurogene selling a nice selection of coloured breeds this year
No the first cross is fine but ie heifer out of a Frisian cow but it’s a heifer out of a shx that we warned him not to keep and he didn’t... the first cross is fine but after that should only be used for terminal breeding not milking.... it would be beef shorthorn bulls we have and straws I was on about cus lads are mad looking for them to finish them or make suckler cows out of them... the real name for dairy shorthorns in the herd book is “blended milking shorthorns” cus they have so much other blood in them...
 
Sold may and June calving heifers here for €1500 to a lad that bought them over the phone! Can’t believe it the world’s gone mad Ted. A new entrant to milk.
Ya couldn't give out about that price. That savage money. Sopose they will milk away for the winter too.
 
Definition of a genuine farmer

Documents seen by the Irish Farmers Journal reveal that the Commission is planning a lengthy reference period, 2015 to 2019.

To be considered a genuine farmer, farmers must provide proof of having purchased at least two pairs of wellingtons in this time.


1/4/2021
 
View attachment 89709

What about dairy cows? Is milk carbon neutral? Surely low intensity suckler farming and cattle feeding is far closer to carbon neutral than the highly intensive dairy farms that exist in this country?
Has to be running 10 suckers on 60 acres of rushes cant be doing any harm... I wonder will we see the day soon where the farmers up the west will be well off as they have so much ground that is massively beneficial to the environment... all the new reps and new sfp structure put proper money back into these lads pockets.. I am probably getting to the stage here where we are better off being a part of these schemes than not being part o them from now on as they will be mostly interlinked anyway
 
Has to be running 10 suckers on 60 acres of rushes cant be doing any harm... I wonder will we see the day soon where the farmers up the west will be well off as they have so much ground that is massively beneficial to the environment... all the new reps and new sfp structure put proper money back into these lads pockets.. I am probably getting to the stage here where we are better off being a part of these schemes than not being part o them from now on as they will be mostly interlinked anyway

We will do adapt our farm to do anything if they pay us. But their proposals for the New REPS is laughable. The ideas that they have floated for measures, the amount of work that will go to planners and inspectors which will have to be paid for out of the floated amount - farmers will have less money out of it than they had out of GLAS. If they want us to rewet bogland, reduce cattle numbers, rewild etc, etc., they can't expect that farmers that want to farm will just stop keeping cattle. We have made a point of being in every scheme that has been going for the last 25 years - none have ever paid enough that we could reduce stock numbers and still have an income out of it. At best, they compensated for a falling animal price. So if they want to see less stock and land used differently in this part of the country, they will need to dangle a sizeable carrot.
 
We will do adapt our farm to do anything if they pay us. But their proposals for the New REPS is laughable. The ideas that they have floated for measures, the amount of work that will go to planners and inspectors which will have to be paid for out of the floated amount - farmers will have less money out of it than they had out of GLAS. If they want us to rewet bogland, reduce cattle numbers, rewild etc, etc., they can't expect that farmers that want to farm will just stop keeping cattle. We have made a point of being in every scheme that has been going for the last 25 years - none have ever paid enough that we could reduce stock numbers and still have an income out of it. At best, they compensated for a falling animal price. So if they want to see less stock and land used differently in this part of the country, they will need to dangle a sizeable carrot.
What are some of the measures proposed?
 
We will do adapt our farm to do anything if they pay us. But their proposals for the New REPS is laughable. The ideas that they have floated for measures, the amount of work that will go to planners and inspectors which will have to be paid for out of the floated amount - farmers will have less money out of it than they had out of GLAS. If they want us to rewet bogland, reduce cattle numbers, rewild etc, etc., they can't expect that farmers that want to farm will just stop keeping cattle. We have made a point of being in every scheme that has been going for the last 25 years - none have ever paid enough that we could reduce stock numbers and still have an income out of it. At best, they compensated for a falling animal price. So if they want to see less stock and land used differently in this part of the country, they will need to dangle a sizeable carrot.
I admire your conviction @muckymanor. I would say this though. In general, EU subsidies have been super for farmers in this country. They did exactly what they said on the tin, they compensated farmers for producing cheap food to feed a growing population post wars. The cheap food thing went a little too far probably, allied to the fact that there were huge efficiencies in farming and food production since the subsidies were introduced. The subsidies now have a new focus, environmental protection, which whether we like it or not, is here to stay and is being driven by big business, politics, etc. The Irish farmer or any other European farmer is disposable at this stage, where he or she wasn't when the subsidies were introduced as food was scarce then. Subsidies in this part of the world are on the wain with a good while now, and that will continue. I would say this time around that farmers will have a choice. They can either stay farming productively and take a big hit on subsidies or they can do what they are told in these eco schemes and just farm on the side as they say. Either way, they won't be making farmers rich, of that you can be sure because as I said above, the farmer is now disposable. The stock of the farmer has fallen and that is not going to change for the time being anyways.
 
What are some of the measures proposed?
There is a thread on it somewhere. They have floated ideas about reduced fertilizer and pesticide use, paying on measurable results as opposed to previous schemes where you got paid for actions, planting a % of your land with native trees, rush control.
 
I admire your conviction @muckymanor. I would say this though. In general, EU subsidies have been super for farmers in this country. They did exactly what they said on the tin, they compensated farmers for producing cheap food to feed a growing population post wars. The cheap food thing went a little too far probably, allied to the fact that there were huge efficiencies in farming and food production since the subsidies were introduced. The subsidies now have a new focus, environmental protection, which whether we like it or not, is here to stay and is being driven by big business, politics, etc. The Irish farmer or any other European farmer is disposable at this stage, where he or she wasn't when the subsidies were introduced as food was scarce then. Subsidies in this part of the world are on the wain with a good while now, and that will continue. I would say this time around that farmers will have a choice. They can either stay farming productively and take a big hit on subsidies or they can do what they are told in these eco schemes and just farm on the side as they say. Either way, they won't be making farmers rich, of that you can be sure because as I said above, the farmer is now disposable. The stock of the farmer has fallen and that is not going to change for the time being anyways.
I don't disagree with single word that you wrote in this. It's all true. My point is that if they are asking farmers to choose between keeping stock or reducing stock numbers to save the environment both for the same return, then 99% of farmers in this country will choose what they know because for a huge proportion, it's a way of life. If the government want to see a sizeable shift from suckler fariming (didn't we see in the papers last week that they want to reduce the national suckler herd by half a million head or something in that line?), then they will have to offer environmental schemes that are significantly more rewarding than current returns from sucklers. And just see how attached farmers are to their sucklers - the vast majority are keeping them at a loss or just at break even - so compensation for environmental measures will need to be very very attractive to encourage farmers to change.

And on top of that, as farmers, we aren't fools. We know that the money is there to compensate farmers. Governments all over Europe and the world are collecting rafts of money in carbon taxes. Ours is the only industry that can absorb Co2 from the atmosphere and convert it into O2. This money should be going to pay us for managing the farmland by regeneratively grazing grassland, maintaining hedgerows, planting new forests etc. This isn't CAP money. It's carbon tax money. We see big companies paying stacks of money to big landowners to offset Carbon. We should be paid this money in addition to well managed farming practices, not as an alternative.
 
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Fed up reading the journal it's all just hypothetical greening schemes with no real improvement on production or energy efficiency. If it wasn't for the crossword that my mother enjoys I'd not be bothered buying it any more.
 
Fed up reading the journal it's all just hypothetical greening schemes with no real improvement on production or energy efficiency. If it wasn't for the crossword that my mother enjoys I'd not be bothered buying it any more.
I used to buy it just for my mother for the crossword aswell. I never read it. They then put the price up and I said if she wanted the journal just put it down to me in the shop
 
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