If we were farming in such a position, We’d look to rent the extra 30 acres and maintain farm output.
I don’t begrudge or envy any dairy farmer, they deserve all they earn, for the work they do, it can be a tough life on families too.
I would not enjoy being a dairy farmer, I know it’s not the life for me.
From where I’m sitting, the policy is clearly pushing to reduce stocking rates on intensive dairy farms.
There’s two options, reduce cow numbers or increase acres.
This will put pressure on the on land for a while, markets will always supply what’s in demand.
@MF 698T
Made reference to Raymond Potterton’s advertisement, of land for lease in Meath, it’s a while since, I’ve seen such an amount of land come up for rent, it’s all leases now and everyone except the auctioneer is the better for it imv.
There are plenty of farms around here with no successor. several are dairy farms, the big prices for rent, will bring land to the market.
Within 5 years, some of these existing dairy farms will be coming up for lease.
As beef and tillage farmers we rent land, I could be negative and say we can’t compete with dairy farmers and there’s no future for our system.
However I’m more upbeat about farming and our farming system than I’ve been in many years.
We’re not out trying to compete for land against another farmer who can pay multiples of what our economic price is.
I’m not worried about land availability, the land will come to us, that’s business we’re in.
Environmental pressure is reducing food production, on a world scale.
Less chemical, less fertiliser.
Production will decrease, demand will increase.
As a mixed farmer, growing a mix of crops and finishing beef cattle, using our own slurry and dung, along with more, imported from other farmers, the real shite, not paper piss.
We are in a better position, than we were previously.
We regularly hear or read about the number of world harvests left on some land.
With our current farming system our land is only getting better year after year, despite what many environmentalists experts and policy makers may think,
The biggest problem we currently have is the increasing price of some farm machinery.
Similar to culling and replacing dairy cows or selling a finished animal and buying a store.
We need to keep our machinery updated or go will end up reducing production.
Best of luck to all farming in 2023, hopefully it will be a good year.
Though I believe we are overdue a wet summer, with a decrease in Winter acres and more spring crops to plant. We will be making our crop decisions with a cautious expectation that it could be a wet summer.