Farming Youtubers

youllbemine

Ya Clare man living and farming outside Cavan town.

visatorro

See a couple of lads from Cavan with channels now, there must be a few pound in it all the same!!

I have seen some of the newer lads from Cavan but they don’t seem to have much of a personality to attract a long term following in my opinion. Drone farm for example has a lot of dead air during his videos and no music, not following. I think where YouTubers might run into trouble is for example farmer Phil had a recent video about straw blowing, I remembered and enjoyed his video last year about straw blowing, I’m not going to watch another rerun, I watch most of his videos. I have unscribed to a few YouTubers I used to follow recently, just got tired of, same old.

@Siamsa Sessions

@Siamsa Sessions

Merch store next lad 😄

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119840110#Comment_119840110

I saw your video on organics. Have you considered changing systems and going organic?

Like you could grow oats for flavans or feed stuff for organic dairy/beef

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119859880#Comment_119859880

I’m open to all offers!

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119859993#Comment_119859993

You need scale to do cereals. And then you need more ground to keep cattle (or sheep) to generate FYM. I’m only farming 30 acres until 2025.

What I cut from the video is the fact that I have zero trust in the politicians and policy makers pushing the organic scheme down farmers throats. Their goal is stats and figures to boast about in Europe and future COP events. They don’t really factor in the impact on farmers and I’m not convinced they properly consider the environment in anything other than an abstract/spreadsheet type of way

funkey_monkey

@Siamsa Sessions - what work did you do on the front loader? Looks like all the prong slots have been sprayed - was it re-sleeved for the prongs?

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119860492#Comment_119860492

Got a local man to do it for me.

All prongs were replaced and a new bed put on the bottom. He uses a grey paint wherever metal is exposed such as around weld joints and some nuts/bolts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119860488#Comment_119860488

A few truths were said on the course I attended including "It's a good scheme if you have scale", and "If you expect to make your fortune in organic beef or lamb, you'll be disappointed". I'd agree the current OFS scheme payment is there to tick a political box, but farmers should leverage that payment if they can. Never trust a politician should go without saying, particularly in farming. Each farm, and the system each farmer runs is different so not all schemes suit everyone. We see intensive dairy talking about sending back the BPS, other farms won't qualify for ACRES, and other farms still won't go into OFS.

I'd have a different view on COP and the environment. Rather I'd tend to ignore the politicians hot air and look at my own farm. I haven't bought synthetic fertiliser in years. I have pretty much stopped buying meal. A spanner was thrown in the works this year or I would get away without buying hay also. Now, these are choices I've made and ones my farm system must adapt to. I don't tolerate being held hostage by my farm, it's there to work for me, not the other way around. I'm certainly not going to be working for MII, Government or others. How often we hear of people "slaving away on the farm", no thanks got that t-shirt. Visit's to farms like Tom Stacks and others showcase what is possible outside "the system".

I feel it's that slavery to a system that has generated statements I've heard from farmers, re OFS "I feel like I'd be giving up", re sprays "I'd have to stop farming if they went", re input costs "Is there any future for the small farm?". They are genuinely depressing statements to hear, from people I know personally. However they refuse to look at other avenues. An organic farmer beside me, who I didn't know was organic!, said he kept it quiet as other farmers had accused him of "taking the soup". It is as if livestock didn't thrive and grass didn't grow before salesmen came along with synthetic chemicals and solutions in bags and bottles. They can have their place, but a system doesn't have to depend on them, like an addict need's their next hit, and you are not to be trusted if you're not looking for that hit.

I regard myself as a land owner first, farming is just the business conducted on my land at the moment. I get similar sh1t about selling land next year, "what would the old people think?", well, they had their time. The point of this post is, a system can change in favour of the land owner. Input costs can be reduced, profits can be increased, and new schemes can be availed of if so desired. But, change is inevitable. I see changing my farm, in my favour, an easier thing to do than going down with the system ship that hasn't been working to my advantage in the first instance. I'm not sentimental about "how things have always been done".

Just a few thoughts, I watched your clip so I'm not disagreeing with you.

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119860890#Comment_119860890

We are on the same page and I'm sitting here nodding at everything you're saying; in particular, what you said about the "old people". They saw and made more changes than most farmers operating today.

This is a generalisation of course, but I never bought the idea that the "old people" wouldn't like to see a farmer changing what they did. From what I can remember growing up here, the older generation had much more of a life outside the farm. Very few thought farming was a "career" as the media now refer to it as.

Every generation has its faults, but I'd look to those previous generations of farmers for ideas, more than any poster boy in the media these days. Says the man with a shed in the IFJ (very reluctantly) this week 😀

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119860488#Comment_119860488

The right job would be contract rearing of organic dairy heifers

funkey_monkey

How did you end up writing in the ifj?

Good loser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119861033#Comment_119861033

The silo roofed?

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119863397#Comment_119863397

I approached a guy called Thomas Hubert who used to work there in 2015, not long after we started back farming again with a few sheep. I have worked for newspapers before and am just interested in the media in general.

It just rumbled on from there

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119863452#Comment_119863452

Yup, that’s pretty much it

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864433#Comment_119864433

Just being nosey here but you say you might do a mirror image of shed in future, will you have to knock remaining silage wall to access feed passage ?

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119864917#Comment_119864917

Yeah, that might need to be done alright. But I was really only thinking of mirroring the roof structure to replace the roof of the first span of the cubicle shed (the silage wall you can see at the moment is part of that cubicle shed). That roof is looking more shook every winter.

Not sure how the layout might go then (maybe stay as is, but just with new roof over that first span?) but it was really only having to replace that old roof that had me thinking about mirroring the new shed structure. I've no grand plan and open to any suggestions 😀

tanko

How much would that black Massey farmer Phil had cost?

minerleague

Said it had all the extras available 150k ? probably way out 🤑

I’m going very selective on what videos I watch on farming YouTube in future, didn’t see farmers Phil video today, as have no interest in either a red or black massy. I watched i farm’s 17 min video on a shear grab which his never going to buy or me, was expecting some of his more usual content during the video which their wasn’t. Not having a go, YouTubers comment section is more like a fan club. I was very impressed with the sales man he had on, seems all very honest. Was reading a Bloomberg article about English farming YouTubers recently and the money they make, just something I can’t relate to when I work everyday on a farm, call me a begrudger. Followed some of them that were asking for money because farming was so bad or some other bs, when you see how Tom p has transform his farm in 2 years in makes since. The funky farmer’s been very bad with tough time’s farming wise lately, currently putting in a new kitchen. I’m no longer going to watch farming videos unless I think I can learn or relate to whatever their doing on the day or until they get too big for my liking lol. Be better off filling in my blue book. Will always watch a silage clamp being opened or will it ever stop raining video.

dmakc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119871329#Comment_119871329

I agree with reference to Pemberton. It's just not relatable anymore

timple23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119872711#Comment_119872711

I take it you won't be buying his new book?

leoch

Ur not the only one getting fed up with them I don't bother watching alot of the videos now

Farmer2017

Got fed up of looking at YouTube. It all the same from all the YouTubers on the Agri side. It either a tractor or free stuff. It the same every week. It very hard to keep videos fresh and interesting esp when like farmer Phil has 3 videos a week. It a lot work to n there eve and fair play to them but the content from them all is gone extremely boring

pingg10

Still enjoy the youtube videos.

Tom pemberton has made a lot of improvements but surely that has been done on countless irish farms in the last 10 years

Be interesting to see how he gets on with installing paddock system grasstec designed

That must be relatable to any dairy farmer here

Still enjoy ifarm and farmer phil

your man with the near cnoc and the far cnoc is decent as well

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119874239#Comment_119874239

Great post. No need for all the complaining from the posters above. The people going to the effort making the videos will never please everyone, no matter the content.

P.S. "Your man with the near cnoc and far cnoc" is a very good and almost daily contributor to this forum. There are often little discussions on the most recent videos. Of course, Phil, Adrian and Gerry pop in from time to time and it's great to see that too.

funkey_monkey

I've always wondered about Tom P and his dad. His dad seems a very knowledgeable man and speaks very well, but it would seem that until Tom started getting a few quid from YT there was little or no investment made.

Are they tenant farmers or owners? I've never really understood how tenant farmers rent land and improve the facilities - how to they get payback for improving the farm?

One thing about Tom is he seems to be fairly easy going - I'm not so sure I'd be so easy going if the fellas that poured the concrete in my yard had it pooling like it was in his last video - was like a paddling pool outside the shed.

tanko

Sure Farming is boring, it’s the same thing at the same time of year, year in year out, what do people expect them to show?

Farmer Phil and ifarm are the only two i watch regularly, they’re easy to relate to, i thought the video about the black massey was interesting, nice to see how the other half live and surely the video about the shear grab was useful to anyone thinking about buying one.

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119874311#Comment_119874311

You’re too kind!

I’ve only started and I’m not sure how the pros like Phil and Adrian from IFarmWeFarm do it. I’ve said it before on here but I think mine are kinda boring. Especially at this time of year when all you’re doing really is feeding cattle in a shed.

It’s kinda only when something goes wrong that you might have something half interesting to show.

But I’m learning something about how YouTube works and how to record/edit video's so I’ll stick at it for another while anyway