Dairy Expansion

The Dutch are going to pay farmers compensation to reduce numbers/exit the industry, while your above brainstorming ideas literally want to put farming families out on the side of the road and financially ruined, remember all this dairy expansion from the get go has been government led, and now we are in a situation where billions of euro has been invested both on and off-farm with co-ops having took on massive debt to facilitate it...

The only way this money gets paid back is through milk going through these plants at the numbers that farmers have based their borrowings on and processors have also, our a Dutch style compensation system is put in place....

Going with the stick approach is all well and good, once whatever sitting government that implements is prepared for kickback, Canada at the minute with the Trucker/farmer protests is a eye-opener that eventually if you continually beat down on a certain demographic of a thought of placid section of a population you'll eventually provoke them to go to extreme lengths in defiance

I'm not sure 100% of what the deal was.

I know one producer I sold heifer calves to took the deal. Another locally where there was issues between the parties was nearly tempted but didn't. If it was improved on they almost certainly would have retired.

South wexford there's a good few went ahead.

I know who was handling the applications was surprised at the interest.

On cattle and sheep and horses?

Ah yea, next government.

Tried and failed on the suckler cows with the donegal minister this time.

Every farmer will have turned on their neighbour.

All this won't be over by a long shot in a long time.

Battle after this is when the soil samples go back to the dept looking for peaty ground. Enviros currently have a figure of 10% of farmland to be taken out back to sphagnum moss. But they're not 100% sure. So the soil scheme was called for. Final figures will be known after. Department of Ag are not on the farmers side anymore. It's meeting carbon figures on paper now for the enviros at the conferences now, takes precedence.

It's going to be the saving grace, politicians in the main are working of the assumption of endless low interest bonds to implement their green new deal policies, if we go back to a 2007/2008 type scenario, their priorities will change to survival mode instead of worrying about been carbon neutral by 2050

don't think the opposition Could be much worse but they wouldn't be much better either. weak toaisoch as well. Ryan is wagging the tail. there seems to be a grand coalition of ruthless vested interests lined up against farmers now. from online influence to schools and third level and media. yet markets for our produce are on fire.

It won't grass ...but I think that is the Idea

When you see what Trudeu is about to pull in Canada re the trucker protests, theirs a tipping point been reached where Western democracies are going the chinese route

The Minister is only taking on 17,000 dairy farmers, and you can see by the instigator of this thread, that many (maybe most) non dairy lads will be rubbing their hands at this.

He might not be that unpopular at all.

Double edged sword however...can you imagine where the price of beef will go if there's a dairy cull....and cull is what can happen here.

Gov are not going to allow dairy numbers rise. It doesn't matter at this stage that we could still reduce emissions with rising numbers. The gov are only concerned about "Public Perception"..The perception that they will put farmers under the cosh....because they sure as hell are going tonhave some job reducing emissions in any other area.

Cows are the only soft option.

Ireland completely avoiding that thought. Europe will start to pay attention as the numbers floodi g across the Mediterranean in makeshift rafts start to swamp us...

They are, and kudos to them, but their market is tiny. They buy milk from just 50 farms.

Not sure how many other processors are in the organic game... Arrabawn have 1 organic supplier, and that fullfills their demand, through their regular outlets, for organic milk.

Other countries are exporting organic Dairy products, not saying its the full/only answer to all this but the industry here is exclusively targeting the current conventional lower margin bulk market. Can that continue with the rising cost of intensive production, processing capacity problems,labour shortages, calf welfare, environmental constraint issues etc,?? How will margins stack up down the road in the face of all this??I guess the next few years will tell....

PS - Another issue coming down the tracks is the relentless rise in the move to non Cow-dairy alternatives. Pretty much every specialist dealing with food allergies, skin, gut issues etc. are telling people to ditch conventianal dairy in their diets

I'm afraid none of that is true

They are but for as long back as I can remember there saying that so we will just have to see can't see a big change either way

The market for organic milk is small , none of the bigger processers are interested ,largely because it's a chicken and egg situation , there's not enough largescale milk production so no will dedicate a milk factory to it , and because there's no largescale plant - theres no large scale milk production ... And round and round -

Organics is just a set of rules that consumers trust -, there are plenty of other ways to improve environmental outcomes and reduce production ,

But they'll involve change .. and people don't like sudden change imposed on them ..

What is it with this government, they want to close down every productive indeginous industry we have and let the foreign companies flourish, give them grants, tax breaks. You would wonder who is being looked after in government and by who.

I was milking cows by hand before blowhards like your learn't how to wipe your own ar$e. If you bothered to read what I posted i simply mentioned other countries are exporting organic into that growing market and also mentioned the spiralling costs of ever more intensive production. By all means your type are happy to keep going down the latter route which is your entitlement - so did pork and poultry..... so I suggest you reign in your arrogance and smugness on the matter

you were not long forgetting the rap on the knucles the moderator gave you a few days ago

Did someone die and make you a moderator??

I think your being rather naive thinking the big players in Dairy processing are going to treat Dairy farmers here with kid gloves in terms of margins going forwards compared with how other processors are currently treating Pig/Poulty, especcially as the milk pool continues to expand and consolidation continues to proceed at a pace in processing - after all pork production worldwide fell off a cliff last year due to Swineflu outbreaks and yet that industry looks like its going to need a serious bail out by the government in the near future. Speaking to lads who have been in Dairy since the 70's in some cases, they are worried too about the way things are going, since they and myself remember what farmers were getting for milk back then which would shock alot of folk in terms of how farm gate milk prices haven't come anywhere near keeping up with inflation on any front over those 4 decades!!

PS: Should have mentioned that the Kiwi model which the industry here is closely following is perhaps a good measure of where the pressures on margins, regs etc. are going to come on going forward.

God be good to him.