Decline of the Farmers Journal

cute geoge

At ag collage ou tutor used say to cut out and keep any article of interest .Even back then it was only at most 3 or 4 pages every week that were of any interest the reat is advertising and waffle .At the same time in them 3 or 4 pages every week the info. provided is not available in any other publication .There is a way more scutter in Agriland and few enough stories of any great interest.

If we all stop buying the farmers journal then it will just dissapear with its replacement a poor substitude and dont get me started on the farming independent with a donkey as its editor!!!

epfff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885504#Comment_120885504

Farmers journal will not disappear in our lifetime it has a hefty trust fund that can only be spent on agricultural education.

That's the idea of the research farm. Which tries things, makes mistakes and tell the public so they don't.

I don't buy myself for similar reasons to not been member of IFA I feel it is weighted towards successful farmers of the 90s and has nothing to offer my generation making there way without daddy having given them a SFP while he still works hard on farm drawing oap.

whelan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885504#Comment_120885504

It's a long time since I was in ag college. Is the journal free there?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885576#Comment_120885576

It is not so much it's weighted towards successful farmers as it had abandoned it trust function. It's supposed to be there to educate farmers.

It has now become a political weapon where it's only function is to promote a large commercial farmer agenda.......along with suckler cows.

While lip service may be paid to other parts of the wider agriculture economy it only raison d'etre now is to promote intensive farming. The t areas it most supports is large tillage and dairying and feedlots and if course promote suckler cows for these feedlots.

If it's trust function is education it should have spotted things like the calf issue( export and quality) nitrates, land rental pressure .

It should question the function of agri relief on inheritance and leasing neither which provides the function they were originally put in place for

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885667#Comment_120885667

Something that I notice they do as well is really try drive the whole idea of land prices going up and people paying high rent. Just as 1 example, I remember a good few months ago they’d a farm that was sold for crazy money, way over €20,000/acre, I looked it up then and saw the original advert online for that and photos etc, it was clear as say it was worth an absolute fortune in development, a fella wasn’t paying €35,000/acre for it for his replacement heifers to be inside in it like.

as well you may see them talking about a farm that sold for let’s say €1.2 million and made €24,000/acre but they’d leave out from the whole thing that there was a house maybe worth €400,000 that went with it like. Lately I found they’re driving hard the thing about land prices going up as if it’s gonna go the same way as it all went back around 2006.

last year when farming got a good year the IFJ in my opinion encouraged people along to pay crazy money for rented ground, €400/acre etc… it’s just not balanced reporting.

realistically if farm land didn’t have such favourable inheritance tax treatment and let’s say it had absolutely no special inheritance tax treatments at all then it would be half what it is

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885667#Comment_120885667

Dairy farmers have got plenty warning from IFJ about bobby calves and exports.

And plenty information for rearing calves but greed seems to trump all.

A lot of lies used here to support criticism of IFJ, I'm surprised to see you at it

awaywithyou

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885734#Comment_120885734

jesus you did well if you managed to rent land for 400/acre... most of the ground around here went for 500+/acre... and i doubt if it was the IFJ that forced/encouraged em to pay out the big money...

i know of a farm that sold for 26k/acre and i know of another bit of land not too far from that farm that was for sale and apparently not even one bid was put in.... but you wont hear about that....

on land renting or buying.. i remember my father yrs ago buying bits of milk quota.. leasing quota etc all that craic only for it all to be for nothing with the removal of quotas.... i think if a lad sits tight and waits a few yrs.. ther will be plenty of land to rent and do whatever you want with it... it happening a bit already but with the age profile of farmers land availability will increase definitely within 10 yrs if not sooner....

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885667#Comment_120885667

+1

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885821#Comment_120885821

+1 on that, High prices cure high prices,

I tell the guy that rents my sheep accomadation that there'll be loads of land for him in less than ten years, poor land might have no one to take it

patsy_mccabe

I used to read the Farmers Journal years ago. Every page. I haven't bought in years, but picked it up a few weeks back. I was shocked at how little it changed. Print media is dying a slow death anyway. A pity really, as most online stuff is just sensationalist, headline grapping nonsense.

The printed press was everything one time. Control that and you control the people. So important for it to be unbiased and factually accurate,

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885872#Comment_120885872

The main thing turned me off buying it was the sensational/exciting headlines that turned out to have nothing behind them when you bought and read the thing.

There was a period of about a year there in the run up to the new single farm payment where every week the headlines would lead you to believe they had some sort of insider info etc on what way it was going....every time I bought it there was nothing of any substance...

I understand why you might do it or even might have to do it but that kind of thing is a double edged sword too...nevertheless I can't help but think it might be a worthwhile thing to keep alive...albeit with higher standards and less of the shite.

DukeCaboom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120885872#Comment_120885872

That's literally exactly how I feel about it.

Silverdream

It had it's role a few years back when information didn't flow as freely as it does now. Information like grants, new schemes, changes of policy etc are all readily and easily available online now. They have managed to keep interest by sensationalising stuff but that wears thin too after a while.

It had its day, it failed to adapt and now its in terminal decline. In fairness they did make some effort to move to digital media, but the problem for them is the barrier to entry is very low, you don't need a staff of 150 to have a youtube channel, a blog or a website nowadays. It possible now to create a newspaper with the same content online as the journal only 1 or 2 people using AI to write the content.

There subscription model, along with other newspapers is wrong too. idk why I have to subscribe to buy a newspaper online, surly it should be possible to buy the online paper as a single transaction and not have to subscribe for a year, it makes no sense. I don't have to subscribe to buy a single newspaper at my local shop

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120892624#Comment_120892624

Extremely well put. Excellent points made. After reading your post I went and looked at the IFJ website as I’m still a subscriber for another couple weeks. The articles they have up on it are laughable.

1 article has the headline “wrought iron gates are still a symbol of success” - no disrespect to the journalist but in todays world who’s gonna sit down for 5 or 10 minutes and read an article about how owning a wrought iron gate makes you a successful person.

I looked at the rest of the articles they’ve got up as well today then and it’s utter waffle. Agriland has a couple short to the point articles up this morning which are 100x more interesting to me as a young dairy farmer

mr.stonewall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120892701#Comment_120892701

That article caught my eye. The journal is more than technical efficiency and farm news.

These gates are wonderful examples of real craftspeople at work. If that article encourages maybe 10 people to salvage and retain a few gates it has been successful. They were well made gates, while being narrow for today. Minding a pair is beneficial. These gates were a mark of success in the past is where it came from

Media is evolving and the FJ is looking to snatch at many different areas of country life.

dmakc

Having to call someone to cancel your subscription instead of a few clicks is a bit backward too

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120892840#Comment_120892840

Good luck to the IFJ to expect my generation of farmers to pay hundreds of euro per year to read about what gates make you a successful person

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120892701#Comment_120892701

The Irish Farmers Journal is the leading agricultural publication in Ireland and the UK, with the latest news from the world of agriculture, ...

Your sad comments are really getting tiresome now

The comments on this are made by professionals and will out trump anything you have to say..

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/irish-farmers-journal-named-2023-media-brand-of-the-year-762613,

it's about time you gave it a rest

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120892886#Comment_120892886

Didn’t you say you’re not even farming anymore. You sound like a bitter person who’s a problem with a successful young farmer

ftm2023

That wrangler sounds very bitter! Most people here don’t like the content on IFJ now, he’s picking on 1 poster 🙄

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120892929#Comment_120892929

Even the point he made about it being the most successful paper is nonsense. My own grandparents would have bought the IFJ every week even if it was written in Arabic, it’s the brand name that’s selling the copies each week now. If it was only started from scratch now with such poor content they wouldn’t be able to give it away

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120892909#Comment_120892909

Yea, a grudge against successful young farmers is the reason I have a young farmer renting my sheep accommodation. and yard for a nominal rate,

I am farming actually and your post is attacking the poster instead of the post

When we were farming up to 600 ewes we were a go to place for farm visits by dept of Ag, bord bia, foreign visitors, even a team of EU vets inspected our farm, the records and all, and found all good,

jaymla627

Biggest issue present day with the irish farmers journal is their towing the line re draconian measures that Charlie/epa/Europe are trying to hammer us with on a constantly evolving basis, they needed to be the springboard to fight the above but their just not going to rock the boat, https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/irish-water-fined-for-contamination-of-conservation-in-cork-1439315.html

They're is any amount of ammunition out their to fight the narrative re waterways and rivers not just been the dirty farmer doing the damage but the journal never bother to really investigate this and do proper in-depth articles showing how the likes of Irish water are using farming as the scape-goat when they get caught like the above

mr.stonewall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120892863#Comment_120892863

Very simple for you to take a step back and vote with your feet. Take the local paper as an example it has to cater to many audience's and covers local news on a cat up a tree, court cases, who won the bingo to local sport. The journal is the same. You take what you want from it.

Back to the successful farming bit. It's not all about cash, cow numbers or how many acres you farm. Everyone has different goalposts to measure success in their system. These will be different to you and me, but what matters is respecting their goals that they wish to achieve.

On history, respect the past to drive the future

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120893000#Comment_120893000

Look nobody cares how many ewes you had 30 years ago. You’re the one who said in this threat you’re not farming anymore. If you’re ever selling your little sheep farm give me a message and I’ll come and buy it in cash. Don’t be annoying me for the rest of the day. You think the IFJ is great and that’s lovely, I’m delighted you like it. Maybe go read it and stop annoying me

ftm2023

Wrangler, you can dish it out but can’t take it back then. Get off boards, you’re ruining a perfectly good, valuable thread topic. Move on.

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120893114#Comment_120893114

Valuable thread? It's whinging session about people who aren't even in the room to defend themselves.

Buy the paper. Don't buy the paper. Move on.

If the OP has an issue with some article printed last year, head to Bluebell and take it up with the editor. Get a solicitor and take a case against them if you're so inclined.

More fool me for engaging - I'm unfollowing this thread I'm and sorry I bothered reading it in the first place.

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120893188#Comment_120893188

No problem whatsoever with anything they ever wrote about me. Literally at least my 5th time explaining this. I’m a loyal customer who’s upset at the poor content that is in a paper now which I used to look forward to coming out each week. I won’t be subscribing anymore coz I don’t like it, if you don’t like this thread maybe then as you said unfollow it and we’ll all be happy

roosterman71

Lads, lads, attack the jaysus post and discuss the paper and not be dick swinging. No one gives a **** what ye think of each other.

This thread should be closed. It started off like an advertisement for Agriland, then bashing the IFJ (which for all it's faults is still the best selling and #1 agri paper/presence in the country), then a grudge appeared against the paper and now posters are being attacked. Grow the **** up

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120893215#Comment_120893215

Very unfair I keep being attacked saying I’ve a grudge. The guys working at the IFJ are lovey people, really nice guys. There’s no taking that away from them. If a person goes to a movie and it’s rubbish they’re allowed leave a review, I’m a paying customer of the IFJ and am entitled to state that I think it’s gone very downhill, doesn’t even measure up to Agriland which is free. I’ve given my own name in the thread which is more than any of you have done. Why would I want to advertise for Agriland? Stop making up lies about people and try make some decent points to prove your point