New farm advice

taibhse

Hi, if I could get any opinions or advice from farmers that would be great.

Basically have just come back from Italy a little while, having spent some time on a farm there. I loved every minute from getting up at 5:30 every morning for milking and feeding and herding, to looking after the chickens, to tending vegetables.

Where we were staying was an agriturismo, so slightly different to the traditional style of farming in Ireland, although there are some of these in Ireland.

I am from Dublin, not a farming background, but this isn't some romantic idea of escaping to the countryside. I am well aware that there is plenty of hard work involved. I am young (24) and have a degree but never saw myself actually making use of it to work in your typical 9-5. I have been thinking about this for a long time and the experience in Italy validated it for me.

So what would people's opinions be as to the viability of these in Ireland as a business?

If I was to go about buying a farm, how does it work in regards to mortgages etc? i.e. your income is from your farm, which will take a while to start turning some sort of profit, how do you pay in the meantime.

How often do new farms establish themselves that the bank would be dealing with?

Many thanks

brianthebard

I think the first thing you should do before considering a mortgage or whatever is go to agricultural college. You need it for a variety of things, I imagine banks might take you a little bit more seriously if you do a course there as well.
Turning a profit depends on a lot of things; how big the farm is, what crops you are selling, where you are selling, usp, niche markets, etc, etc, etc, ad in finitum. After the course try and figure out what type of produce you want to get into, do your market research, look for leader/fas grants for this sort of stuff, look into internet retail and whatnot, try and cast the net as wide as possible. If you think you might make a profit by the skin of your teeth after all that-think long and hard about whether you want to end up bankrupt, cause that's a possibility too. Good luck with it.

il gatto

Similar Thread from some time ago :http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055342033

taibhse

yep, saw that one, but it seemed to be more pie in the sky

I'm looking for more advice as regards mortgages etc, farmers experiences at the moment, market conditions.

I have done some research thus far and am looking into maybe doing the teagasc farming course

farva

Gotta say fair balls to ya op, I'm young(22) from Dublin and kind of from a farming backround(my grandad had a farm when I was a kid and I loved going down there, one of my uncles farms half of it now in tillage as a hobbie) and I'd love to do something like that. I've just started my career in investment banking and my rough plan would be to hopefully buy a farm in later life and retire to tillage farming, most people think that I'm mad for wanting that.

But the best of luck to ya!

il gatto

taibhse wrote: »

yep, saw that one, but it seemed to be more pie in the sky

I'm looking for more advice as regards mortgages etc, farmers experiences at the moment, market conditions.

I have done some research thus far and am looking into maybe doing the teagasc farming course

It's all well and good approaching it as a business, but to purchase a viable farm (i.e. size and quality and even location), and machinery and stocking it, would require a massive outlay, and currently, I really don't think farming would produce an income sufficient to pay for such a big investment.
However, it might be an idea to spend some time on an Irish farm to see if it's what you thought. Possibly approach a farmer with a view to working for free for a couple of weeks and maintaining that farmers full schedule. If it still appeals, a Teagasc course would be good, or you may be able to take a 1 year course in the likes of Gurteen, Mountbellew or the like.
Supposing you do the Teagasc course. Next would be decide what type of farming you want to do (dairying is expensive to set up and extremely restrictive to live with). Next you need to decide where you want/can afford to go.
When you've picked a county or area, maybe visit an accountant there. They would let you know how things stand locally and what steps to take. A bank like the ACC used to be agri friendly, but I'm not sure if they still pitch themselves at that market.
Next step is the auctioneer in that area. Many people make the mistake of making this their first. Everything should be decided and ready to go before you start falling for somewhere wrong or out of your league.
Then the hard work starts:D

taibhse

thanks il gatto, some great advice there, I probably should have mentioned it was goats and cheese production I was looking at. They are a lot easier and cheaper to look after than cows and have great little personalities.:)

This would be in addition to having people come to stay on your farm as a holiday and paying for the priviledge. Although, I did see I think it was in the Irish times about visitor numbers to Ireland being lower this year.