Milk Price- Please read Mod note in post #1

mf240

Won't be long till someone tests the old msa to see if it holds water.

Timmaay

Talking about rubbish printed in the newspapers, this article in the findo makes me not want to even bother looking inside it ever again.

yewtree

stretch film wrote: »

He copped a fair bit of flak on Twitter from a regular contributor here.
Either our man has fantastically efficient cow's when it comes to milk from forage or their overall efficiency in turning various sources of energy into litres is greatly underestimated .

I saw the Twitter conversation, for me it became too focused on 1/2 herds (excellent herds). The average dairy herd in Ireland produces 380kg Milk solids a cow and feeds about a tonne of concentrates. What response are they getting from meal today?
Everyone wants to believe they are better than average but the reality is- half of us are worse than average.
Looking at it from a national herd perspective the article seemed fair enough to me.

Timmaay

Timmaay wrote: »

Talking about rubbish printed in the newspapers, this article in the findo makes me not want to even bother looking inside it ever again.

.

jaymla627

Timmaay wrote: »

.

I'd say he will shortly end up in a position in glanbia would be a perfect fit with the crap he is throwing out, the best line was the one where he basically says just tough it out lads the boys with the high cost systems will shortly go broke and then you'll be laughing

Timmaay

yewtree wrote: »

I saw the Twitter conversation, for me it became too focused on 1/2 herds (excellent herds). The average dairy herd in Ireland produces 380kg Milk solids a cow and feeds about a tonne of concentrates. What response are they getting from meal today?
Everyone wants to believe they are better than average but the reality is- half of us are worse the average.
Looking at from a national herd perspective the article seemed fair enough to me.

That I certainly will admit! But the ironic thing is the most them lads who are knocking out less than the average simple don't have good enough grassland management anyways, and the cows could well milk worse without the nuts as all they'll be eating is long steamy crap. Hardly even worth wasting time trying to tell them to change.

Water John

Yes Timmay, our good friend M Brady.
Brady would have pushed 500 cow herds to be the norm a few years ago.

Good to see him looking at future trends. But let him put clothes on those figures. What labour input does he see to that herd of 200+ cows?
If my memory of a previous article a few weeks ago is correct, he suggested an average farm income in future of €50K. But only €13/14K was coming from farm activity. €36K was from SFP.
So a farmer is expected to milk 200+ cows for €13K!!! Ah please stop.

He raises the idea that we have made great 'progress' since the abolition of quotas. Yes, we have increased output. But our income is gone through the floor. He has a limited definition of progress.

He goes back to that discredited Teagasc figure of COP of 20 cent/litre.
He accepts some items not included but then he wants off farm income to the house included. I must remember that the next time I'm evaluating a business plan for a shop. I must tell the person that their OH's salary is to be included in the profit figures.

Indo ag section is largely good. Putting in this rubbish only angers me. Raise the bar.

yewtree

Timmaay wrote: »

That I certainly will admit! But the ironic thing is the most them lads who are knocking out less than the average simple don't have good enough grassland management anyways, and the cows could well milk worse without the nuts as all they'll be eating is long steamy crap. Hardly even worth wasting time trying to tell them to change.

That's a fair point on grassland management & was guilty of it myself when I started farming. There are herds that use concentrates efficiently and are very profitable. However most herds in Ireland are closer to the situation described in the article

RightTurnClyde

stretch film wrote: »

He copped a fair bit of flak on Twitter from a regular contributor here.
Either our man has fantastically efficient cow's when it comes to milk from forage or their overall efficiency in turning various sources of energy into litres is greatly underestimated .

The "regular contributor" was bang on with his argument and was able to give and prove specific examples in his herd and his herd in totality is proof.
Brennan's argument was just a general non specific, "that's what I've been told so its true" argument.

My herd of cows are no prize winners, and I'm sure my farming wouldn't win too many prizes either, but could Aidan explain how my herd has gone from 5000 L & 420 kgms on 250 kgms flat rate fed ration in 2015 to 7000 L & 500kgms on 1000kg feed to yield ration in 2016.

Dawggone

Timmaay wrote: »

Talking about rubbish printed in the newspapers, this article in the findo makes me not want to even bother looking inside it ever again.

That article fits perfectly into RTClydes excellent post about the 'top to toe' Nz model...

Something tells me that solutions won't come from within the industry.

yewtree

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

The "regular contributor" was bang on with his argument and was able to give and prove specific examples in his herd and his herd in totality is proof.
Brennan's argument was just a general non specific, "that's what I've been told so its true" argument.

My herd of cows are no prize winners, and I'm sure my farming wouldn't win too many prizes either, but could Aidan explain how my herd has gone from 5000 L & 420 kgms on 250 kgms flat rate fed ration in 2015 to 7000 L & 500kgms on 1000kg feed to yield ration in 2016.

In fairness he was quoting results from research and a large group of commercial farms. there must be variation between those farms some obviously get a better response to meal feeding. Using your individual farm results doesn't disprove the basis of the article, that most farms get a poor response to feeding in mid summer which is showed by the national average production.

Anyone that can get 500 kg ms from their cows is a very efficient farmer.

darragh_haven

Dawggone wrote: »

That article fits perfectly into RTClydes excellent post about the 'top to toe' Nz model...

Something tells me that solutions won't come from within the industry.

If it won't come from within the industry.... its outside interference. I presume that interfernce will be on an EU scale. I can see there being a **** storm in the Irish dairy industry that the return of quotas won't sort out.


Either way there will be lots of casualties similar to what your seeing in the French dairy industry atm

browned

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

The "regular contributor" was bang on with his argument and was able to give and prove specific examples in his herd and his herd in totality is proof.
Brennan's argument was just a general non specific, "that's what I've been told so its true" argument.

My herd of cows are no prize winners, and I'm sure my farming wouldn't win too many prizes either, but could Aidan explain how my herd has gone from 5000 L & 420 kgms on 250 kgms flat rate fed ration in 2015 to 7000 L & 500kgms on 1000kg feed to yield ration in 2016.

How come the change in feeding Clyde? 420kgsms on only 250kgs of ration was a great return. The extra 750kgs in ration is only giving 80 extra kgsms

RightTurnClyde

yewtree wrote: »

In fairness he was quoting results from research and a large group of commercial farms. there must be variation between those farms some obviously get a better response to meal feeding. Using your individual farm results doesn't disprove the basis of the article, that most farms get a poor response to feeding in mid summer which is showed by the national average production.

Anyone that can get 500 kg ms from their cows is a very efficient farmer.

I'm confused. What bar should I be aiming for " Large group","Most Farms", " National average" or top 10%

if individual farmers are getting results from feeding, it means it's possible so why not research and report that.
We'll hear about the the exceptional farmer that's growing 14 tons of grass or the farmer who's costs are 20c , etc. These aren't achievable by the "Large group" or "Most Farmers"

yewtree

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

I'm confused. What bar should I be aiming for " Large group","Most Farms", " National average" or top 10%

if individual farmers are getting results from feeding, it means it's possible so why not research and report that.
We'll hear about the the exceptional farmer that's growing 14 tons of grass or the farmer who's costs are 20c , etc. These aren't achievable by the "Large group" or "Most Farmers"

My point isn't that you are wrong. It's nothing to me what bar you aim at.
My point is that one farm can't be used to Dismiss research based on a large number of farms. The results over a large number of farms will give a truer picture of what's happening at farm level. Just like one cow can't be used to prove/disprove the EBI.

There is a fair point that farms with very low costs/ very high grass growth don't represent what happens on average farms.

In my opinion advocating to grow more grass/ cut costs is a much better message in comparison to feeding meals to chase production which has been shown doesn't work on the majority of farms.

I accept that there are farms that can make money feeding higher levels of meal but they are in the minority

RightTurnClyde

browned wrote: »

How come the change in feeding Clyde? 420kgsms on only 250kgs of ration was a great return. The extra 750kgs in ration is only giving 80 extra kgsms

We're not paid on a+b-c, so the 80kgsms and 2000L is giving me close to 100% return. There was an income increase also from being able to increase SR by 8%, with a minimal increase in fixed costs.

browned

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

We're not paid on a+b-c, so the 80kgsms and 2000L is giving me close to 100% return. There was an income increase also from being able to increase SR by 8%, with a minimal increase in fixed costs.

Didn't know you weren't being paid on a+b-c.

browned

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

I'm confused. What bar should I be aiming for " Large group","Most Farms", " National average" or top 10%

if individual farmers are getting results from feeding, it means it's possible so why not research and report that.
We'll hear about the the exceptional farmer that's growing 14 tons of grass or the farmer who's costs are 20c , etc. These aren't achievable by the "Large group" or "Most Farmers"

when I was researching about converting to oad teagasc provided little to no research on the topic so I ended up getting most of my info from England, nz, France and oz. Do I resent teagasc for not having the relevant info for me? Of course not. They've a limited budget and it'd be foolish for them to waste it on a topic which only effects 100 odd farms in Ireland. Teagasc are researching and promoting one model of milk production and that is 500kgsms from grass/silage and 300-500kgs of ration to supplement the shoulders. i don't fall inside this bracket of production and neither do you so why get worked up about an article for which Neither of us are the target audience. theres plenty of research for our system of production out there without having to rely on teagasc to provide it for us.

RightTurnClyde

browned wrote: »

when I was researching about converting to oad teagasc provided little to no research on the topic so I ended up getting most of my info from England, nz, France and oz. Do I resent teagasc for not having the relevant info for me? Of course not. They've a limited budget and it'd be foolish for them to waste it on a topic which only effects 100 odd farms in Ireland. Teagasc are researching and promoting one model of milk production and that is 500kgsms from grass/silage and 300-500kgs of ration to supplement the shoulders. i don't fall inside this bracket of production and neither do you so why get worked up about an article for which Neither of us are the target audience. theres plenty of research for our system of production out there without having to rely on teagasc to provide it for us.

:), I'm not worked up.
But, if Aidan Brennan came out and said that the majority of farmers aren't doing OAD, so OAD doesn't work, I doubt you would consider it good journalism.

browned

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

:), I'm not worked up.
But, if Aidan Brennan came out and said that the majority of farmers aren't doing OAD, so OAD doesn't work, I doubt you would consider it good journalism.

I honestly wouldn't give a ****. I know my system works for me so why should I let the opinion of others bother me.

stretch film

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

:), I'm not worked up.
But, if Aidan Brennan came out and said that the majority of farmers aren't doing OAD, so OAD doesn't work, I doubt you would consider it good journalism.

That's the hub of it . AB was effectively disputing the return on meal by the contributor on the basis that it fell outside research parameters.
By his definition the 1.5t fed was giving 1.2l/kg milk tops
Therefore a whopping 6k litres come from forage. That's a highly efficient return on energy supplied through forage.
But the same cow cannot efficiently produce from concentrates research tells us.
The line that the true cost of feeding meal is 1.5times the price/t Is more of it..
The feeding infrastructure is fixed no matter what level your feeding at.
The substitution factor and subsequent grass wastage is purely down to the operator. I'd say we're smart enough to decipher the variations in research results without having to be spoonfed the average all the time .

Milked out

I can see both sides of the argument. A lot depends on the cow or system you have. The issue with the article I find is there are plenty of caveats which should be included when giving out advice like that. First and foremost is that you would want to have after grass quality grass in front of cows and plenty of it in order to cut meal while still in the breeding season imo. Cutting it with some paddocks stemmy or a bit stemmy would hit yield and eventually condition too hard. Previously I used to cut back on meal to get the cows to clean these paddocks but now I actually up in order to reduce or prevent loss in yield and cows still clean it out as much as they can. The second is cow type, and by association cow condition, they are talking about the average cow in terms of yield and response but they must realise the xbred is far from the average cow, and they are possibly the only cows to be bred to maintain condition on grass alone at this stage in the year anyway. No point cutting out ration only to have to feed it to cows on the dry period which they have often advised. On the response it depends on a few things stage of lactation being one of them. I find here anyway the later in to lactation the better the response particularly as grass energy levels from in autumn.I had planned on cutting back meal for autumn calvers here, calving in 0ctober, but they are still keeping toe to toe with spring calvers average and with higher solids. Also how much can cows eat, what size of a cow have you? Winter diets here made up to 22kg/dm and it all gets eaten, fair enough two forages help intake but my cows getting 18kgdm of grass only are under fed.
Basically when giving out advice on meal they quote average farmer yields and that's that but when it comes to grass figures or cop they throw out the top 10% without a consideration for land or a wage figure

stretch film

browned wrote: »

I honestly wouldn't give a ****. I know my system works for me so why should I let the opinion of others bother me.

You paid for the research and having it dispensed to you.
If you did all your own reading up on international resrarch on oad then the least you were entitled to was that your advisor was as well versed .

Dawggone

darragh_haven wrote: »

If it won't come from within the industry.... its outside interference. I presume that interfernce will be on an EU scale. I can see there being a **** storm in the Irish dairy industry that the return of quotas won't sort out.


Either way there will be lots of casualties similar to what your seeing in the French dairy industry atm

I wouldn't call it outside interference, more like a leader that stands up and points out the fact that the Irish (NZ) system is always going to be bottom of the pile pricewise and there is a better way through innovation etc. Dr. O Reilly did it before...

There's a shake up here at farm level, mostly due to economics, demographics and lifestyle. Farmers here don't and won't do the persistence/resilience style of business as Mr. Brady espoused in his article. Friend of mine from the heart of dairy country tells me that a 190ha trophy farm is for sale because the son couldn't be bothered. I wouldn't allow a son of mine to pledge himself to the 10yr business model of Mr. Brady...I wonder would Mr. Brady slave like that himself? I doubt it.

France Germany and Poland are pressurising the EU for production controls. I hope big Phil holds his ground.

jaymla627

Dawggone wrote: »

I wouldn't call it outside interference, more like a leader that stands up and points out the fact that the Irish (NZ) system is always going to be bottom of the pile pricewise and there is a better way through innovation etc. Dr. O Reilly did it before...

There's a shake up here at farm level, mostly due to economics, demographics and lifestyle. Farmers here don't and won't do the persistence/resilience style of business as Mr. Brady espoused in his article. Friend of mine from the heart of dairy country tells me that a 190ha trophy farm is for sale because the son couldn't be bothered. I wouldn't allow a son of mine to pledge himself to the 10yr business model of Mr. Brady...I wonder would Mr. Brady slave like that himself? I doubt it.

France Germany and Poland are pressurising the EU for production controls. I hope big Phil holds his ground.

He won't have any lightbulb moments himself until his 'clients' dispense of his services our simply haven't the money to pay him, I'd say he could be after leading a lot of gullible lads up the garden path re dairy expansion/more numbers/high borrowings etc but he won't tell us that in any of his articles of how they're struggling our have switched to interest only loans

browned

stretch film wrote: »

You paid for the research and having it dispensed to you.
If you did all your own reading up on international resrarch on oad then the least you were entitled to was that your advisor was as well versed .

Let's says there's 100 oad farmers in ire. That'd mean 16,900tad farmers. It would be pretty selfish of me to expect a similar level of knowledge in oad as there is in tad. I have no problem paying for research that is totally tad based because at least some of it will be revelant to me at some stage.

whelan2

Timmaay wrote: »

Talking about rubbish printed in the newspapers, this article in the findo makes me not want to even bother looking inside it ever again.

Is he the advisor Kingstons had?

Dawggone

jaymla627 wrote: »

He won't have any lightbulb moments himself until his 'clients' dispense of his services our simply haven't the money to pay him, I'd say he could be after leading a lot of gullible lads up the garden path re dairy expansion/more numbers/high borrowings etc but he won't tell us that in any of his articles of how they're struggling our have switched to interest only loans

That article has been translated and widely published here, to quite some bewilderment and even disbelief. Firstly it's illegal here not to pay yourself a wage because of PRSI, pension and health etc, and secondly to imply that the Eu dairy herd will fold and open the Eu markets to Irish milk powder...





Edit.
Expect a drop in production figures coming out of France. This is because of the wettest and coldest weather in a century....not as Mr. Brady would have you believe.

kevthegaff

what about guys struggling? Still putting out a positive spin! Mass exodus coming in the next decade imo. As dawg says I'd like to see this guy working any of these farms. Have a real bad feeling some of these rags have "aligned" themselves to processors. How many articles questioning processors judgements? We really are lacking leadership on behalf of dairy farmers in this country

yosemitesam1

Milked out wrote: »

I can see both sides of the argument. A lot depends on the cow or system you have. The issue with the article I find is there are plenty of caveats which should be included when giving out advice like that. First and foremost is that you would want to have after grass quality grass in front of cows and plenty of it in order to cut meal while still in the breeding season imo. Cutting it with some paddocks stemmy or a bit stemmy would hit yield and eventually condition too hard. Previously I used to cut back on meal to get the cows to clean these paddocks but now I actually up in order to reduce or prevent loss in yield and cows still clean it out as much as they can. The second is cow type, and by association cow condition, they are talking about the average cow in terms of yield and response but they must realise the xbred is far from the average cow, and they are possibly the only cows to be bred to maintain condition on grass alone at this stage in the year anyway. No point cutting out ration only to have to feed it to cows on the dry period which they have often advised. On the response it depends on a few things stage of lactation being one of them. I find here anyway the later in to lactation the better the response particularly as grass energy levels from in autumn.I had planned on cutting back meal for autumn calvers here, calving in 0ctober, but they are still keeping toe to toe with spring calvers average and with higher solids. Also how much can cows eat, what size of a cow have you? Winter diets here made up to 22kg/dm and it all gets eaten, fair enough two forages help intake but my cows getting 18kgdm of grass only are under fed.
Basically when giving out advice on meal they quote average farmer yields and that's that but when it comes to grass figures or cop they throw out the top 10% without a consideration for land or a wage figure

The mad thing about this is that there has been research and equations developed to predict intake, substitution but no-one in the likes of teagasc/ifj can be bothered to look them up and have a play around with them to get a feel of how wide the difference in response will be.

it is also interesting to see that the lactation curve of irish herds drops a lot faster than the higher output herds on the continent which would seem to suggest an awful lot of milk missed out on and grass not utilised to its max because cows aren't supplemented properly

kowtow

Meanwhile the journal quotes a KPMG report on New Zealand saying "what worked in the past won't work in the future" ... can't get the link easily from my phone.

mahoney_j

I've given up commentating and paying much heed to guys like ab and articles from jk in journal ,etc etc .i feed up to 1.5 t of meal ,my cows go to grass in early Feb till late Nov ,this year they'll produce over 7500 ltrs and 580 kg solids from just that and grass and quality bale silage currently feeding 4.4 kg meal cows on aftergrass and knocking out 31 ltrs and 2.3 kg m/s daily some of these clowns would probably tell me I'm feeding too much considering grass I'm on .ive list no cows to tetany in years ,feed no meal to drys cause they were dried off in poor condition 100% of cows and heifers bred within 4 weeks ,no way I'd achieve any of what I do without meal feeding and rely on grass only to power my cows .no issue feeding cows strong up to mid lactation (8 kg )to achieve a stronger longer peak and higher lactation curve .

keep going

it must be that time of the month when milk checks come out and people get all tetchy.yeah carbery dropped .5 cent which leaves the base price at 25.6 incl vat but now coops are subbing that .5 cent.word has it browned that ye boys have committed to holding that sub for the year.intervention extended to 350000 tons for smp.production starting to ease a bit except for...........us,cows starting to be culled in alot of countries

Dawggone

keep going wrote: »

it must be that time of the month when milk checks come out and people get all tetchy.yeah carbery dropped .5 cent which leaves the base price at 25.6 incl vat but now coops are subbing that .5 cent.word has it browned that ye boys have committed to holding that sub for the year.intervention extended to 350000 tons for smp.production starting to ease a bit except for...........us,cows starting to be culled in alot of countries

+1. Tetchy.

Cow cull seems to be increasing across Eu but there's also quite a lot of product in storage. Oz having a bumper harvest and US preparing to store wheat in car parks, coupled with another promising Eu harvest...

When price upturn does come, don't underestimate the ability of Eu herds to increase production without increasing numbers...

kevthegaff

I think we're going to see sub 30c for 3 yrs and more

freedominacup

atlantic mist wrote: »

we are being paid based on protein and butterfat, nothing for whey or lactose, were milking the cows and they are milking us

pedigree i think our biggest problem is the secretary and ceo of coop hold the same position in the plc, its a complete conflict of interest and they have shown a complete abuse of power in the role

our coop Secretary actual sat pruning his nails at a meeting in dungarvan while making the comment that they thought more farmers would sell the shares on spin out and they will be looking at further avenue to address this....here we are!! they are following the kerry group lead, however i think glanbia has had more profit warnings since its establishment than kerry, they have over paid for companies in america and have a nice debt pile

we are one of the suppliers who has increased production, i think were now supplying double what we were pre quota, debts has caused us to keep increasing to try and spread cost but only so far we can go, the model of gii wouldnt provide me with a sustainable way of living so need to start looking at another avenues as piling on more debt is not the answer, keep loans withing stock value and have some sort of exit plan

gii business model is based on low prices with a base of sub 28c, my milk development manager told me they would have issues with me over my cost of production prior to spin out, i replied that once the bundle of cash is spent by coop members on spin out i can see a supplier revolt occuring

Apparently some of the senior executives have beaten farmers to the punch. Strong rumour of share disposals in the seven figure bracket in the past few days.

freedominacup

yewtree wrote: »

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

The "regular contributor" was bang on with his argument and was able to give and prove specific examples in his herd and his herd in totality is proof.
Brennan's argument was just a general non specific, "that's what I've been told so its true" argument.

My herd of cows are no prize winners, and I'm sure my farming wouldn't win too many prizes either, but could Aidan explain how my herd has gone from 5000 L & 420 kgms on 250 kgms flat rate fed ration in 2015 to 7000 L & 500kgms on 1000kg feed to yield ration in 2016.

Anyone that can get 500 kg ms from their cows is a very efficient farmer.

500kg of ms isn't even a target tbh. It should be an average. No great secret to achieving it.

mahoney_j

freedominacup wrote: »

500kg of ms isn't even a target tbh. It should be an average. No great secret to achieving it.

With the right cow ,excellent grass ,correct feeding and good nut behind the wheel

keep going

kevthegaff wrote: »

I think we're going to see sub 30c for 3 yrs and more

if i was offered a fix priced contract for all my milk for the next 3 years at anything above 30 id probaly take it

Dawggone

keep going wrote: »

if i was offered a fix priced contract for all my milk for the next 3 years at anything above 30 id probaly take it

Hmm, it would have to above 30cpl. I'd put 50 to 60% in at the low 30s alright.

Anyhow it's not all doom and gloom. France's Min of Ag offered a visa to his Russian opposite number contrary to a EU ban. Russia wants to be open for business again...?
There's also a lot of money trying to find a home atm and commodities may look like the lesser evil. Here's hoping.

RightTurnClyde

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/agribusiness-and-food/irish-milk-prices-among-lowest-in-europe-1.2686227

yewtree

freedominacup wrote: »

500kg of ms isn't even a target tbh. It should be an average. No great secret to achieving it.

Disagree it's a figure 90- 95% of farmers aren't achieving so it is a target that's in front of the majority of dairy farmers.

Also milk yield per cow has little or no relationship with farm profit shown across different systems. The thread seems to suggest that you have to have very high yields to be profitable. I am not saying high yielding herds are not profitable just chasing yield doesn't always leave the most profit.

pedigree 6

kevthegaff wrote: »

I think we're going to see sub 30c for 3 yrs and more

New Zealand's minister for positive milk price.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/81147531/dairy-to-remain-volatile-until-milk-prices-start-improving-next-year

mahoney_j

yewtree wrote: »

Disagree it's a figure 90- 95% of farmers aren't achieving so it is a target that's in front of the majority of dairy farmers.

Also milk yield per cow has little or no relationship with farm profit shown across different systems. The thread seems to suggest that you have to have very high yields to be profitable. I am not saying high yielding herds are not profitable just chasing yield doesn't always leave the most profit.

A combination of decent milk litres combined with good % solids gives high kg .ive seen a lot of what would be regarded as model farms with absolutely savage %soluds but v low milk kg .personally wouldn't regard less than 5 k ltrs and <450 kg ms as overly impressive ......that's just me .reading lots about guys in journal etc with cows pumping out less than 20 ltrs per cow atm not my cup of tea either .500 kg ms min should be bench mark for an average Irish herd

kevthegaff

Any word on Arrabawn j?

OverRide

That Dutch survey showing glanbia paying the lowest price in Europe in April is in the Irish times today

Someone should email it to George Lee
Glanbia, Bergin and Talbot have displayed the worst contempt for their milk suppliers in Europe
An absolute disgraceful shower

browned

keep going wrote: »

it must be that time of the month when milk checks come out and people get all tetchy.yeah carbery dropped .5 cent which leaves the base price at 25.6 incl vat but now coops are subbing that .5 cent.word has it browned that ye boys have committed to holding that sub for the year.intervention extended to 350000 tons for smp.production starting to ease a bit except for...........us,cows starting to be culled in alot of countries

Just saw that now. Some commitment to hold price at 23.75 for the rest of the year. They must be either confident that prices won't drop much further or have heard that a sharp rise is on the way☺️

mahoney_j

OverRide wrote: »

That Dutch survey showing glanbia paying the lowest price in Europe in April is in the Irish times today

Someone should email it to George Lee
Glanbia, Bergin and Talbot have displayed the worst contempt for their milk suppliers in Europe
An absolute disgraceful shower

Fully agree ,no point whinging here tho ,start making noise ,keep phoning and asking questions of board members and what there at ,organise protests ,picket bellview ,don't let trucks in or out ,have them balls to form a group and challenge the Msa .

yewtree

mahoney_j wrote: »

A combination of decent milk litres combined with good % solids gives high kg .ive seen a lot of what would be regarded as model farms with absolutely savage %soluds but v low milk kg .personally wouldn't regard less than 5 k ltrs and <450 kg ms as overly impressive ......that's just me .reading lots about guys in journal etc with cows pumping out less than 20 ltrs per cow atm not my cup of tea either .500 kg ms min should be bench mark for an average Irish herd

I think benchmarks based around profit/ha are more relevant provided all costs are included (land&labour), producing large amounts of milk/cow is useless unless it delivers more money to the farmer. There are plenty of farms producing less than 450kg ms/cow running viable businesses, for me cost control is more important the focusing on milk yield/cow

mahoney_j

yewtree wrote: »

I think benchmarks based around profit/ha are more relevant provided all costs are included (land&labour), producing large amounts of milk/cow is useless unless it delivers more money to the farmer. There are plenty of farms producing less than 450kg ms/cow running viable businesses, for me cost control is more important the focusing on milk yield/cow

Agree profit is king and what any system should be about ,lots of farms producing less than 450 kg ms running viable business but could do so much better ,I'm producing 531(del on coop report )and am aiming for >600 ,8 k ltrs on grass quality silage and 1.5 t meal fty .im focused on breeding a cow that will do those figures and more as well as controlling my costs .requires a bit more outside the box thinking and not taking everything I'd hear or read as fact