Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Maybe you should try to look at the bigger picture sometimes. All this talk about highly profitable dairy farming is a lie that he and others keep spreading. You have people getting into massive debt in pursuit of these huge profits. Beef farmers are calling for dairy farmers to be excluded from future grants seeing as they are so highly profitable. It also seeps into government decision making, etc. Just my opinion. At the end of the day I'd be happy enough to fold up the operation here in the morning and go back to the 39 hour week.

An taisce is to blame for that,that cheese plant would have being up and running only for their objections.thats not bradys fault.

I'd say a few more are wishing they've took it up since

I am only 47 but I think is the last straw for me surely easier ways to make a living .It is going to drive up the rented land again not to mind this foolery of covering all tanks .I would say let them at it but I am out .I would say the more improvements dairy lads make the more they will have to do!! Just bought a rental house in local town 140k and 1k a month rent ..What kind of return would I get putting money into my yard and a newer tractor

Unless milk stays at 35 cent, lads will just scale back numbers, especially if your a glanbia supplier, the slurry storage the department are taking about is conservatively going to cost a 1000 euro a cow, extra land if even available will be another 100 odd euro plus a cow yearly cost, and you have no guarantee in a few years time another set of rules will be brought-in that leave lads having to drop another few 100k, youll see lads just selling their entitlements and take their chances going forward, our mortgage the farm to keep the civil servants and enviro crowd happy

Anyone here read Matt Ryans management notes interesting read every month man has a wealth of knowledge it seems. Technical and pushy but take what you want from the advice

That's very unfair.

He's a poster that posts from the heart with what most of us think just don't put it to post.

If you're a dairy farmer the regs are getting tougher every year and every year demands more spending on farm. Costs that are not included in teagasc or Brady literature. If you don't keep up the expenditure you'll be left behind with too much to make up and there's only one road then.

His experience pre farm off farm gives him an insight most of us wouldn't even think of.

Nope. But I do get sick of being taken for a fool. Plenty more lads seem to love the punishment.

How much work are you doing yourself straight?

Are you doing alot of machinery work and rearing young stock?

Is it unfair? What will be the narrative when base price is 30c or 26 c or 24c?

Straight has said here that he hasn't taken a wage since he started five years ago but in the same breath is saying "big stop on farm spending", those two statements aren't compatible in my book.

I'm a new entrant, business plans were based around three scenarios, 28/30/32 cpl (not base price), last month the milk cheque was 43.5c, thats 45% above the middle business plan. Thats not because I'm the best farmer in Ireland, I'm not, if I was making every mistake I could I'd still be running at 30% above that. And maybe Straight is closer to the base price, if he is he'd laugh at the volume I'm putting out.

If you can't take a wage from your farm this year then there is something wrong, massively wrong.

This is a good milk year, we're on the upside cycle, there'll be plenty of years we're on the downside cycle, the constant pity party is tiresome.

You're saying that regs are getting tougher but we know this. We know that we'll have a longer winter window for slurry storage, we know that washings are probably going to have to included. I've an open slurry pit, I know that by 2027 I'll have to have it covered. We can't say we're responsible for the environment and then be surprised when we're held accountable for it. And yes there will be something beyond that and like any business we'll have to make decisions based on that information. But lads don't want to hear that the answer for some will be to cut back and cut their cloth to measure.

At a 5000 litre herd average, and say you get a milkflex loan to cover the draft new regulations published, your going to be 3-4 cent a litre for a 7-9 year period to just remain compliant if you haven't massive extra slurry capacity at the minute

Ya, raise my own replacements and do my own slurry. I'd prefer to raise my own and do without the extra cows. I don't mind the work but I'm just a bit too tied to the whole thing. I have a good relief milker now but I still need to be nearby for grass allocation.

If you can't understand the difference between farm spending and wages then that says it all for me really. I spent all that money from savings and cashflow because that was my choice. If others prefer to borrow and spread over a number of years, then that's their choice. I have the farm fully set up now after 5 years and I'll be taking a wage from now on. My accountant says I need to incorporate also but I'm not sure yet.

Ya, my milk price is closer to the base price but I have high litres. My milk cheque is probably similar to yours but I don't go telling everybody about how happy I am to be getting paid the same price as 30 years ago.

Money is the last reason anyone should use to decide to go farming in my opinion.

so which is going to precedence when deciding your nitrates level, stocking rate or volume per cow. the ifa should be fighting tooth and nail against nitrate rate based on cows performance. It doesn't make any sense, should they not be targeting more milk off less cows.

They'll have everyone back to 300kgms yet and a 4 cow/ha stocking rate.