What are your thoughts on the fertiliser price s for 2022

You will only have staemmy seedy **** grass

Lot of beef operations have resort to off farm income. Lot of those ones are also not heavily stocked so there might be some wiggle room.

That said I look at my neighbours, 14 tonne in the yard last march and I would hate to be buying the same this year.

Lot of people still thinking that it will drop in March, they'll get some hop, unfortunately.

The fellow who is stocked heavily might well throw in the towel on that side of things and carry a smaller number.

I carried over a number of cattle that I was going to kill in December till January, takes pressure off next year's target kill, and saves silage, I'm taking a bet that lighter Cattle will be cheaper come late Spring as lads off load.

It's a weird time alright, we could be on the start of a sustained food price rise but all the inputs are going nuts as well.

Finding the Spot between having as many as you can carry for the least input is never more important.

I'm presuming that beef will maintain or even rise in next 12 months. If it falls then planting, leasing and selling will be big stories in next 2 years.

Is the rented land a job to kill two bird with the one stone. Reduce the stocking rate in light of the nitrates proposals, insurance against the loss of dero and potential of extra cheap tonnage of fodder.

Rental prices will collapse is poor areas where beef and part timers are the only game, opposite to happen in dairy/tillage strong holds

My plan is Slurry only on Silage fields and give them a bit extra time to get the same yield. I've started culling Cows that are old or poor performers. 3 gone already, one of them was 16 years old and made over €1100 so how bad is that. 6 more to go before the end of February

I've managed to buy up a good bit of hay around me and have over half of my winter feeding needs for Winter 2022/3. Lads think I'm gone mad buying hay when I already have surplus for this Winter but I think it's a cheaper option at €20-€25 for hay bales you will not be able to produce it for that next year with the cost of Diesel also to be factored in.

Absolutely no stragglers being kept now, no dairy calves even if I got them for nothing. The surprise for me is that after doing the figures I might end up with as good or a better margin now

Wouldn't agree with that as long as you graze tight at start of year, getting good silage is hard alright without fert as crops do get stemmy waiting for any bulk

This is one of the biggest stories in the world at the moment, and no one really gives a shi7.

A wave of revolution started in the Arab world when Urea hit 850 dollars, Well past that now.

The price of fertilizer is a global news story. It's the thread behind the next 20 years of politics. It's 9 11 on speed.

The problem is a lot of farmers are being lead down the road of efficiency and production not profitability. There are a lot of lads that are over expanding and not doing the maths as to where the optimum profitability is .

Keep extra cows produce more milk, spread more fertlizer, zero graze, spread more slurry,MIT's a vicious circle. Nobody is saying go back to a cow to a HA but you have to look at optimal profitability not maximum production

Neither do I as I assumed lads would consolidate themselves rather than increase bills at taking extra land for 5 years at an inflated price

Any time a challenge to Dairy expansion/maintenance of current production, there is alway a cry that this will increase demand for rented land. There seems to be a irrational fear of consolidation or reduction in production.

The economics seems simple in this case a ton and of urea costs 950 euro an acre of conacre might cost 2-400 euro. There is still a lot to of places you will lease meadowing for a crop for 100-150/acre.

Where you begin to lose traction is with added cost and workload. A lot of lads think this fertlizer issue is a short-term blip. However nobody is considering where prices will stabilise at and the longterm trend.

Gas prices are not going down any time soon. Even if Europe changes from pipeline gas to the tanker gas prices will remain strong.

Looking at a Urea base price, in the medium to longterm we are probably going to see 500/ton as it's floor. We may see a blip below that in the short term in late 2022/2023 but the price of fertlizer will follow the price of rations upwards.

Russia and China will not change there no export policy next year if either sees food shortage issues. India will see require massive amounts of product. With poor harvests and high grain prices the larger grain producers will push demand if fertlizer prices fall.

Is twenty acres of land better value than 5-10 ton of Urea. May be if it adjacent to you and you can take it only for a year. However you be silly to factor in longterm leasing because of fertlizer costs without looking at consolidation as that is the way milk production will have to move over the next few years

I saw an article in one of the farming publications last year where a father/son operation had put in a 30 unit parlour. They had gone from 100ish cows to over 200 and intended to go to 250+.

Now the father was in his early sixties and the son in his thirties with a young family. I was wondering how sustainable it was. Aside from if anything happens to either in the short-term, both are facing 10+ years of managing a large dairy system. If they even have to start to pay labour within the system it will really increase the workload for the person left and take the shine off profitability.

That is before you look at external factors such as present fertlizer costs, nitrates and climate action impact.

Previously it was a 100ish cows plus a beef operation.

Ah yes the better way of doing things narrative, John.

As ever it's easy to do it until the requirement to be scaled up and paid labour becomes involved.