Beef Expansion - Potential Own Goal for Ireland

Sunset V

Hi,

Saw Ella McSweeeney tweet about an article that is in today's farming Independent by ICSA general secretary on beef expansion. Decent read.

http://t.co/iXhwInk

You agree?

blue5000

"The only conclusion is that beef and lamb expansion is only possible if markets can be developed and only desirable if such markets can return sustainable prices".

Above sentence from the article sums it up nicely, what did the tweet say?

Sunset V

Completely agree with your summary there.

Here's her tweet, nothing major in it. Few others on about it.

ellamcsweeney Ella McSweeney

Eddie Punch, General Secretary of @ICSAIreland, on why beef expansion could be an own goal for Ireland: bit.ly/nNWk5t #irishfarming

3 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

pakalasa

"The rush by farmers to buy Holstein calves for finishing here rather than letting them off to continental veal units will prove to be an own goal on several levels. They'll make no money and the extra animals will depress beef price."

That's the bit I would have to agree with. Jasus, I bought one calf this year as a replacement for one that died. He's a black whitehead (more nostalagia than anything ), but I can see the holstein coming out in him already, Convinced I'm feeding him at a loss. I'd hate to have a few hunderd of them.

What are peoples views on ICSA. I've seen the IFA attack them in a few printed articles. But's that's understandable, I suppose.

blue5000

pakalasa wrote: »

"The rush by farmers to buy Holstein calves for finishing here rather than letting them off to continental veal units will prove to be an own goal on several levels. They'll make no money and the extra animals will depress beef price."


.

Ya that bit caught my eye too, we would all have been better off if those calves went away to Holland. Only thing is it costs a processor the same to do one of these as it does to process a U grade animal, with a lot less meat in return. It's a bit like costing the same to house a good one as a bad one.
I reckon there will have to be a bigger price gap per kg on the hook between O/P grades and R/Us. Those plain cattle will be ok for the 'manufacturing' end of the market, but that Kepak-Johnstown castle research work shows that there is no money in them for farmers.

I used to do bull beef with fresians, good money in them when cattle were scarce. By the time all those holstein calves come on stream I agree with the article, there will be a glut of them which will drag down the price of beef.

We know there is a good market for beef, the big question is will the processors reward farmers for producing quality beef, have they got a good taste of what it's like to compete for cattle and market share or will they go back to stuffing money down their ar5e pocket at farmers' expense?

If farmers don't get rewarded for their efforts, we will go back to what our grandfathers did; selling quality forward stores to the UK.

PureClaas

"The rush by farmers to buy Holstein calves for finishing here rather than letting them off to continental veal units will prove to be an own goal on several levels. They'll make no money and the extra animals will depress beef price."

Lads are ye forgetting who the main men are behind the push to keep the dairy bull calves here were??? I also know one thing it wasn't our wallet they were all thinking of thats for dam sure

This was the exact intention from the get go but i dont think it will take affect for 2years
while in the mean time its gona damage the supply sources in holland, there gona source there calves someplace else if we fail to supply and once good old Larry gets the put the beef prices down to the floor again its gona be very hard to get the export markets revived.

Anybody else agree???

blue5000

Hopefully good old Larry will have gone to the knackers yard before then, hes getting long in the tooth now.

PureClaas

Sure there's any amount a yokes waiting to take over where he leaves off im sure there's plenty of little drones waiting there chance to keep the boot on our heads to keep helicopters under there arses

dealerman

+1:D:D:D:D:D

F.D

Maybe the farmer has little choice but to buy the holstein, the price of the decent continental calves is gone through the roof and mainly snapped up by dealers or exported also, with all the suckler lads getting high prices for there weanlings mainly for export (and fair play to them) it doesent leave much to choose from other than the screws from the dairy industry to keep stock levels up without leaving your self in massive debt and making very little margin either way
Imagine the flood of crap thats going to come from the jersey cross, never mind the holstein, not even the dutch will want them for veal anyway, The way i see it
The Beef farmer will have to keep buying what ever he can and be happy with the little margin he makes.
Change to a high quality sucker enterprise and hope the prices stay high.
Hope the Dairy men get sence and keep british fresian type cows and cross them with a beefy bull to have an additional product to sell, after that i cant see any expansion happening anyway

Sunset V

pakalasa wrote: »

"The rush by farmers to buy Holstein calves for finishing here rather than letting them off to continental veal units will prove to be an own goal on several levels. They'll make no money and the extra animals will depress beef price."

That's the bit I would have to agree with. Jasus, I bought one calf this year as a replacement for one that died. He's a black whitehead (more nostalagia than anything ), but I can see the holstein coming out in him already, Convinced I'm feeding him at a loss. I'd hate to have a few hunderd of them.

What are peoples views on ICSA. I've seen the IFA attack them in a few printed articles. But's that's understandable, I suppose.

Just read the article again and one point that sticks out to me when i read it again is the point on the suckler cow premium. Do you think that the beef activation group is right, there needs to be a "substantial" suckler cow premium to reach their targets. I wouldn't be so sure.

On the ICSA, know little about them. Not a member of any org nor will i join any group, waste of money in my opinion, saying that they seem to be about the average, smaller farmer as opposed to the bigger operator. Maybe I'm wrong and open to a flaking!