starting dairy farming from scratch

JD7710

Im a 19 year old with a real passion for dairy farming, the only thing is i have no land no nothing. Men i have worked for said it is possible to start out from scratch but it'll be your grandchildren that will finish paying for it... what do you think

irishh_bob

JD7710 wrote: »

Im a 19 year old with a real passion for dairy farming, the only thing is i have no land no nothing. Men i have worked for said it is possible to start out from scratch but it'll be your grandchildren that will finish paying for it... what do you think

its possible , just not in this country

linebacker52

irishh_bob wrote: »

its possible , just not in this country

It will be possible in this country once quota goes.look up the green field farm it killkenny was set up to show what is possible once you have the money.

Grecco

There must be 2 dozen like you in every parish in Ireland

irishh_bob

linebacker52 wrote: »

It will be possible in this country once quota goes.look up the green field farm it killkenny was set up to show what is possible once you have the money.

yeah but i mean in terms of someone without land starting off , in new zealand , you can start off as a herd manager , become a share milker and in perhaps ten years , buy your own farm

Tipp Man

linebacker52 wrote: »

It will be possible in this country once quota goes.look up the green field farm it killkenny was set up to show what is possible once you have the money.

Greenfields shows nothing of the sort

They are starting from a land base of nearly 300 acres, have been given free quota and are backed by parties that are going to ensure it works no matter what happens i.e. Glanbia and Teagasc

That type of farm (300 acres suitable for dairy) are simply not available in this country and any that are there are making millions

linebacker52

Tipp Man wrote: »

Greenfields shows nothing of the sort

They are starting from a land base of nearly 300 acres, have been given free quota and are backed by parties that are going to ensure it works no matter what happens i.e. Glanbia and Teagasc

That type of farm (300 acres suitable for dairy) are simply not available in this country and any that are there are making

Who said you needed to buy the land all the land in killkenny is rented for 15 years they have only built a milking parlour and a stand off pad.the farm.there have been plenty of problems made public eg cell counts lameness etc.

Tipp Man

linebacker52 wrote: »

[
Who said you needed to buy the land all the land in killkenny is rented for 15 years they have only built a milking parlour and a stand off pad.the farm.there have been plenty of problems made public eg cell counts lameness etc.

The owners of the land that Greendfields is rented from have a 33% (or is it 50%) stake in the greenfields company. so effectively it is the owners

How many 300 acre farms are to rent in the country?? Would you be willing to spend in excess of 1m Euro on infrastructure on somebody else's farm??

F.D

Grecco wrote: »

There must be 2 dozen like you in every parish in Ireland

Possibly because its the only thing making half decent money no matter what scale you are in it, no wonder everyone is looking into it!

pakalasa

F.D wrote: »

Possibly because its the only thing making half decent money....!

Because it's effectively a closed shop with milk quotas. Wait till the quotoas go, and you'll see the price of milk drop below the cost of production, like it did a few years back. Those with low borrowings will be the only ones to survive and ride it out, untill things improve again.

irishh_bob

pakalasa wrote: »

Because it's effectively a closed shop with milk quotas. Wait till the quotoas go, and you'll see the price of milk drop below the cost of production, like it did a few years back. Those with low borrowings will be the only ones to survive and ride it out, untill things improve again.

not nescesserily , we are effectivley operating in a world market now so just because quotas are going in 2015 , doesnt mean that milk price will automatically plummett when that time comes , it will simply fluctuate depending on market demand for dairy products worldwide

Muckit

Will more land become available once the SFP goes?

Then again you still have the problem of trying to rent a few blocks together to make a feasable unit.

And as said previously you probably would want to own the bit you build the yard on

Tipp Man

Muckit wrote: »

Will more land become available once the SFP goes?

Then again you still have the problem of trying to rent a few blocks together to make a feasable unit.

And as said previously you probably would want to own the bit you build the yard on

The SFP is going??

I often see people saying that the SFP made farmers lazy and led to armchair farmers who only do the bare minimum to get payment. Personally i think it's a load of rubbish - I can't think of 1 single farmer that has done the bare minimum to get paid. They all have a similar amount of cattle to what they had 10 years ago or they are all ploughing a similar amount of land to 10 years ago (most doing more tillage in fact) Maybe it varies around the country but i can say for definite that around here this is not the case. Around me i can say for definite there will be absolutley no change in the availability of land for sale or rent when the quota goes or when the SFP is changed.

Deaths are about the only thing that makes land available around here and even then most of it is passed on and not sold

pakalasa

Tipp Man wrote: »

The SFP is going??

I often see people saying that the SFP made farmers lazy and led to armchair farmers who only do the bare minimum to get payment. Personally i think it's a load of rubbish - I can't think of 1 single farmer that has done the bare minimum to get paid. They all have a similar amount of cattle to what they had 10 years ago or they are all ploughing a similar amount of land to 10 years ago (most doing more tillage in fact) Maybe it varies around the country but i can say for definite that around here this is not the case. Around me i can say for definite there will be absolutley no change in the availability of land for sale or rent when the quota goes or when the SFP is changed.

Deaths are about the only thing that makes land available around here and even then most of it is passed on and not sold

I'd have to agree with that. I don't know any armchair farmers either.
Know a few barstool ones though...:D

keep going

hold on there lads ye all think straight away about buying land =farmer where as the first steps have to be building knowledge,capital and stock.time is on your side but you cant become a farmer without these 3 steps so think of the strategy and try and allow for flexiblity

Grecco

Tipp Man pakalasa
Come on lads you cant be serious, around me I ve counted over 6 farms within 3 miles of me that are at nothing worth while. These are farms that used to have 25 dairy cows they are now now running less than 6 store bullocks or a few canner cows.
I got offered so much meadowing and silage to take this year it was unreal, it doesn't even pay to put out fertilizer around me anymore because you can pick up meadowing for less than the cost of fertilizer

whelan1

Tipp Man wrote: »

Deaths are about the only thing that makes land available around here and even then most of it is passed on and not sold

around here its debts or deaths:)

irishh_bob

Grecco wrote: »

Tipp Man pakalasa
Come on lads you cant be serious, around me I ve counted over 6 farms within 3 miles of me that are at nothing worth while. These are farms that used to have 25 dairy cows they are now now running less than 6 store bullocks or a few canner cows.
I got offered so much meadowing and silage to take this year it was unreal, it doesn't even pay to put out fertilizer around me anymore because you can pick up meadowing for less than the cost of fertilizer

where i live , it was the same, you couldnt give away meadows , probabley down to the lack of stock in the country and the fact that thier was a huge surplus of fodder spring gone by

F.D

its drifting a bit off topic now but sfp is locking land especially when its passed on to people like myself and my father are working off farm and have a income to keep us alive wheather the farm make a living or not,(not saying were not trying) maybe this is where it needs to change, but back to the original question, people keep going on about scale and flooding the place with milk, before 2015 was mentioned a lot of dairy farmers were maximising what they land they had getting the best out of it to make a decent living, now every one thinks you need 300 acres and the same amount of cows to survive, is it really this way? is it greed driving this? or is every one just going to make what they have even more efficient, without all the hassle of extra borrowings and more work
if the op really wants to do this renting seems to be the only way, preferably a place with some facilitys to start with even if it is an old clapped out parlour,

Muckit

F.D you talk a lot of sense. But I do think if a farmer wants to produce on in a conventional manner and commercially, then scale is important.

Efficiency is also an important element, especially when it comes to business. No point being a busy fool. Bigger isn't always better if your hemorrhaging money to beat the band.

If you can't scale up, then you need to look outside the box. No point trying to produce the same product in the same way as the bigger equally efficient guy. It's a no brainer that your not going to win that one

Tipp Man

Grecco wrote: »

Tipp Man pakalasa
Come on lads you cant be serious, around me I ve counted over 6 farms within 3 miles of me that are at nothing worth while. These are farms that used to have 25 dairy cows they are now now running less than 6 store bullocks or a few canner cows.
I got offered so much meadowing and silage to take this year it was unreal, it doesn't even pay to put out fertilizer around me anymore because you can pick up meadowing for less than the cost of fertilizer

Wow it must depend on the area

50 acres of first cut silage less than half a mile from our house made EUR 160 an acre - JUST FOR THE SILAGE - crazy money

180 acres for first time tillage made EUR 250 for 3 year lease

Your linking SFP to farmers not producing doesn't work either i think - if a farmer had only 25 cows then barring he had a large tillage or independant beef opertion then how could he have a large enough SFP to decide to ignore his farm now?? It doesn't add up. You can't make a living from 6 or even 60 cattle. Off farm incomes maybe?

Infact as mentioned above the off farm income (be it the farmer or his wife) has a much more significant impact on the availability of land than SFP. As long as the few cattle pay for themselves then many will keep the land and live off the job or the wife's job - I would guess there are thousands of this type of farmer in the country and that means that land will not become readily available any time in the near future - it goes back to the land commission and it aint going to change in any of our life times

Tipp Man

F.D wrote: »

its drifting a bit off topic now but sfp is locking land especially when its passed on to people like myself and my father are working off farm and have a income to keep us alive wheather the farm make a living or not,(not saying were not trying) maybe this is where it needs to change, but back to the original question, people keep going on about scale and flooding the place with milk, before 2015 was mentioned a lot of dairy farmers were maximising what they land they had getting the best out of it to make a decent living, now every one thinks you need 300 acres and the same amount of cows to survive, is it really this way? is it greed driving this? or is every one just going to make what they have even more efficient, without all the hassle of extra borrowings and more work
if the op really wants to do this renting seems to be the only way, preferably a place with some facilitys to start with even if it is an old clapped out parlour,

How is SFP locking the land when you say you are (both??) living from your off farm incomes?? Surely it is the off farm income that is locking the land - without the off farm income i'm sure you'd be glad of the SFP

JD7710

yea i no the crack about the quota going in 2015 but i thought that as well the the price of milk will plummet cause every **** in the country will head for dairying.... will it be worth my time even then looking at going into dairy from scratch

Tipp Man

JD7710 wrote: »

yea i no the crack about the quota going in 2015 but i thought that as well the the price of milk will plummet cause every **** in the country will head for dairying.... will it be worth my time even then looking at going into dairy from scratch

The problem with dairying over the next 5-8 years is we are heading into the unknown - remember over 80% of irish milk is exported so even if we produce a lot more milk post 2015 then it might not have any impact on Irish milk price. The determinents of milk price will be world supply and world demand - how many extra cows will the rest of Europe milk post 2015 and will the market be there for it? Huge unknowns and whats worse is they are completly out of our control

If you want to start farming then buy a plough - you can get as big or as small as you want and you can borrow as little or as much as you want

Depending where you are in the country then there can be lots of tillage land available to rent - but be warned if it's decent land then you will be paying for it!!

F.D

Tipp Man wrote: »

How is SFP locking the land when you say you are (both??) living from your off farm incomes?? Surely it is the off farm income that is locking the land - without the off farm income i'm sure you'd be glad of the SFP

i'm only using our situation as an example we inherited the farm so sfp came with it, what i am trying to say is if it was means tested or something like that every few years we would probably not intitled to it, due to the fact we are working elsewhere, and have to built it back up to a decent level to be entitled to it again, that way you would either push it on and make to keep or get your sfp back, or rent or sell the land if you cant be bothered,dont get me wrong we are glad to get the sfp and we are putting every penny into getting the place up to full speed again, and i hope to make it my full time job before long

keep going

whats involved in getting "new entrants" quota . a young fella next door who used to be in building was in this evening was thinking about going milking as he reckons he might only have bits and pieces of work from now on and the milk would be steady income and could do jobs every now and again

whelan1

and where are people going to get the money to start up ? what are thr banks saying ?

J DEERE

JD 7710, my advice for what tis worth.

Regarding land and land fragmentation/farm size; its not going to change. Too much pride and love of the land for it to ever change. Even renting land doesnt make economic sense at current prices. Time to look outside the box for most of us

Try and find a farmer who has scope for expansion and maybe try and get into a partnership. If you have your green cert, you can apply for the New Entrants Quota. A lot of lads who followed Teagasc advice expanded too quickly and now face superlevy. You will have a lot to offer any progressive farmer with regards access to quota. Your labour and enthusiasm will be highly valued as well. He brings stock, facilities and land to the table whilst you bring quota and labour. Fair enough, you wont be splitting everything 50/50 but it will get you into it. It also saves you the risk of investing in facilities and the cost of renting a place. Try to stay out of debt and borrowing as much as you can. It also insulates you, to a certain degree, against price drops. You will also learn a lot from being involved in a partnership which may someday stand to you if you ever decide to go it alone.

In the end, the decision is yours and yours alone. Weigh up all your options, then choose the one that suits you best. And take advice exactly for what it is, advice. Its not gospel.

Tipp Man

F.D wrote: »

i'm only using our situation as an example we inherited the farm so sfp came with it, what i am trying to say is if it was means tested or something like that every few years we would probably not intitled to it, due to the fact we are working elsewhere, and have to built it back up to a decent level to be entitled to it again, that way you would either push it on and make to keep or get your sfp back, or rent or sell the land if you cant be bothered,dont get me wrong we are glad to get the sfp and we are putting every penny into getting the place up to full speed again, and i hope to make it my full time job before long

I'd be amazed if the SFP is ever means tested - but you never know

The term "active farmer" has been bandied about a lot while the consultation phase was going on - it will be very interesting to see how they determine what an active farmer is and how it will affect land availability. Perhaps 1 method would be to say that an active farmer should have say 75% of his income from the farm - but this would be very unfair on farmers who had made successful investments elsewhere

leg wax

if there is going to be a bright outlook for milk going forward,and farmers are prepaired to supply and milk x amount of cows extra for the coops- plcs ,how come they are doing everything but expand and spend money when they know that all this milk is comeing to process it.it looks like to me they are going to take a leaf out of the meat factories book,and give what they want for what ever you supply over your original quota .if they knew they had a market for all the extra milk they would be building ,and be ready to make their share of the profits from milk like any business.

F.D

leg wax wrote: »

if there is going to be a bright outlook for milk going forward,and farmers are prepaired to supply and milk x amount of cows extra for the coops- plcs ,how come they are doing everything but expand and spend money when they know that all this milk is comeing to process it.it looks like to me they are going to take a leaf out of the meat factories book,and give what they want for what ever you supply over your original quota .if they knew they had a market for all the extra milk they would be building ,and be ready to make their share of the profits from milk like any business.

Its obvious Why build any bigger facilitys when they can just force farmers to supply milk all year round to get a good price instead of having a deluge of it every summer and a trickle in the winter, no different than bringing cattle to the factory every autumn when there coming off grass the price drops and goes up again when there the supply is low
The sooner the media and dairy farmers wake up to this the better set they will be, all this grass based low cost production is going to bite everyone in the ass before long

5live

pakalasa wrote: »

Because it's effectively a closed shop with milk quotas. Wait till the quotoas go, and you'll see the price of milk drop below the cost of production, like it did a few years back. Those with low borrowings will be the only ones to survive and ride it out, untill things improve again.

Pakalasa you are assuming there will be no quotas post 2015. There will be processing quotas because we will be tight on processing capacity with a 10% increase in production. Newmarket at the monent takes the excess milk in the south because it has lots of spare capacity but that will be gone in 2016 as kerry will have first rights to its processing.

And it takes 5 years iirc between talking starting to a drier starting up so if price drops it will be only partly due to ireland increasing production in the short term

bealaha

J DEERE wrote: »

JD 7710, my advice for what tis worth.

Regarding land and land fragmentation/farm size; its not going to change. Too much pride and love of the land for it to ever change. Even renting land doesnt make economic sense at current prices. Time to look outside the box for most of us

Try and find a farmer who has scope for expansion and maybe try and get into a partnership. If you have your green cert, you can apply for the New Entrants Quota. A lot of lads who followed Teagasc advice expanded too quickly and now face superlevy. You will have a lot to offer any progressive farmer with regards access to quota. Your labour and enthusiasm will be highly valued as well. He brings stock, facilities and land to the table whilst you bring quota and labour. Fair enough, you wont be splitting everything 50/50 but it will get you into it. It also saves you the risk of investing in facilities and the cost of renting a place. Try to stay out of debt and borrowing as much as you can. It also insulates you, to a certain degree, against price drops. You will also learn a lot from being involved in a partnership which may someday stand to you if you ever decide to go it alone.

In the end, the decision is yours and yours alone. Weigh up all your options, then choose the one that suits you best. And take advice exactly for what it is, advice. Its not gospel.

as far as im aware, your solution is not possible, because a young farmer may enter a partnership but he will not by given new entrant quota, he wil be given the option to buy quota from the priority pool. in order to get new entrant quota you must be working as a individual and milking cows through your own individual parlour. i.e. not a shared parlour.

centre 13

At least one generation of dairy farmers did not realise their ambition due to quotas and had to mess around with cattle..even sheep to use surplus land..travel thru the north midlands offaly westmeath and roscommon and look at all the decent land carrying drystock,,stone walls means ok land to me.Thats the challenge for IFA..How to get young people onta that land..and allow owners to retire with dignity..BIG ASK .

funny man

JD7710 wrote: »

Im a 19 year old with a real passion for dairy farming, the only thing is i have no land no nothing. Men i have worked for said it is possible to start out from scratch but it'll be your grandchildren that will finish paying for it... what do you think

My advise is do all the coarses in dairying in this country (which i admit are poor on dairy business management) pick your placement carefully, build up contacts go to USA/NZ to work and if you still have the interest come back here and Lease your way in.
IT IS POSSIBLE.

JD7710

funny man wrote: »

My advise is do all the coarses in dairying in this country (which i admit are poor on dairy business management) pick your placement carefully, build up contacts go to USA/NZ to work and if you still have the interest come back here and Lease your way in.
IT IS POSSIBLE.

Thanks funny man but will i still not have to buy a couple of blocks of land to make sure the yard is not on leased ground

JD7710

J DEERE wrote: »

JD 7710, my advice for what tis worth.

Regarding land and land fragmentation/farm size; its not going to change. Too much pride and love of the land for it to ever change. Even renting land doesnt make economic sense at current prices. Time to look outside the box for most of us

Try and find a farmer who has scope for expansion and maybe try and get into a partnership. If you have your green cert, you can apply for the New Entrants Quota. A lot of lads who followed Teagasc advice expanded too quickly and now face superlevy. You will have a lot to offer any progressive farmer with regards access to quota. Your labour and enthusiasm will be highly valued as well. He brings stock, facilities and land to the table whilst you bring quota and labour. Fair enough, you wont be splitting everything 50/50 but it will get you into it. It also saves you the risk of investing in facilities and the cost of renting a place. Try to stay out of debt and borrowing as much as you can. It also insulates you, to a certain degree, against price drops. You will also learn a lot from being involved in a partnership which may someday stand to you if you ever decide to go it alone.

In the end, the decision is yours and yours alone. Weigh up all your options, then choose the one that suits you best. And take advice exactly for what it is, advice. Its not gospel.

Thanks J DEERE i'll keep that in mind but also if i found an active partner to go into a partnership with what way will that work for quota etc.

funny man

JD7710 wrote: »

Thanks funny man but will i still not have to buy a couple of blocks of land to make sure the yard is not on leased ground

when milk price comes back, there will be loads of yards with sheds, you may have to put your own parlour on it. this can be a low cost shed and plant that can be easily taken down and moved to another farm. Go abroad this will broaden your views on milk production, i recommend Missouri USA, Chile and NZ.

PureClaas

Tipp Man wrote: »

Wow it must depend on the area

50 acres of first cut silage less than half a mile from our house made EUR 160 an acre - JUST FOR THE SILAGE - crazy money

180 acres for first time tillage made EUR 250 for 3 year lease


Here is exactly why young lads mad to get into farming will never or hardly ever get into the farming industry.

€250/acre for tillage ground for 3years WTF????

If your growing cereals in this country anything over €150/acre is just not possible to make any money off. One year of good prices makes people in this country go crazy throwing big money at land and never a though about the last 4 to 5 years of either breaking even or even loosing money

I think more systems that control the price of farm land like the ones used in France need to be adopted here. Land here is treated far too much like a stock market comoddity its nuts the money people will pay for land IMO

As for Greenfields, thats a white elephant as far as im concerned.


End of rant

moy83

Does anyone know if there is a quota needed for organic milk ? Or more importantly are there any processors buying it ?

F.D

moy83 wrote: »

Does anyone know if there is a quota needed for organic milk ? Or more importantly are there any processors buying it ?

Glenisk is the only one i know of in Offaly they have a website, not sure about if you need quota or not
Did you do any research into how much per litre you get for organic over regular milk? think that would be the most important place to start

chronicskitter

JD7710 wrote: »

Im a 19 year old with a real passion for dairy farming, the only thing is i have no land no nothing. Men i have worked for said it is possible to start out from scratch but it'll be your grandchildren that will finish paying for it... what do you think

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6480

chronicskitter wrote: »

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my neighbour owns half an acre his front lawn , yet he has £65000 sfp . he has a 65 acre farm rented this last 20 years. he was once the farm manager to this farm till the owner sold and planted the bigger wipe of the farm i think there was 250 acres at one time , he pays 13500 rent a year but the slatted sheds he has in the yard can hold almost 400 cattle , he also has a batch of sheep i think 400 which he runs them on short term ground thats rented during winter . he s always in the marts buying store cattle for fattening and the sheds are full all year round ,the last few years he fed cull freisen cows as they were easier to buy and quicker to fatten . i know he s not in dairying but hes farming as good as any one else and he always changes the landcrusier every two years

chronicskitter

6480 wrote: »

my neighbour owns half an acre his front lawn , yet he has £65000 sfp . he has a 65 acre farm rented this last 20 years. he was once the farm manager to this farm till the owner sold and planted the bigger wipe of the farm i think there was 250 acres at one time , he pays 13500 rent a year but the slatted sheds he has in the yard can hold almost 400 cattle , he also has a batch of sheep i think 400 which he runs them on short term ground thats rented during winter . he s always in the marts buying store cattle for fattening and the sheds are full all year round ,the last few years he fed cull freisen cows as they were easier to buy and quicker to fatten . i know he s not in dairying but hes farming as good as any one else and he always changes the landcrusier every two years

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chronicskitter

JD7710 wrote: »

Thanks J DEERE i'll keep that in mind but also if i found an active partner to go into a partnership with what way will that work for quota etc.

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Harrier1980

chronicskitter wrote: »

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If your going to abuse people at lease spell it correct!!

Rovi

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funny man

chronicskitter wrote: »

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