Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Drive the f**k on, why would you dry up with potentially 70 cent a litre this winter

Because of the stupid banding legislation that teagasc wrote which says that if you produce a few hundred litres over 6300 then they are going to fine you.

If you didn't draw down the dole money you can basically drive on, nitrate derogation is basically goosed going forward anyways your just buying yourself a year our two at best given the 220kgs/ha been muted for 2024, what's the plan then give the 400 acre for ground to keep numbers at current levels our destock

Is the banding not coming next year

It will for me atm any way, we’re just on the edge of heading into higher band and selling good kgs ms

for us here I’ll just focus on the percentages and less on the litres and still try sell the 560 kgs /cow

Ya, based on what you supplied the previous 3 years. If it's over 6300 you are severely punished imo.

That's a very grey area and a boogeyman been used to scare lads, when you see the slap on the wrists lads are getting for discharging slurry into waterways leading to fish kills, you logically need to dive into it a bit more, and work out what exactly they can actually do to farms like you mention above that aren't actually polluting our showing up on their radar, re high nitrates in adjoining waterways etc....

Wouldn’t look on it as a punishment …..I do think those bands are a load of ……. Though …if anywhere near 6300 then you’ll be over it pretty quick through maturing stock alone ….drive on into the higher band and to hell with it …..don’t get this stigma some seem to have re keeping less cows ….every herd has cows they could cull …less cows …better quality cows …more milk …more solids …less nitrates pressure .all positive

From recent Oireachtas debate on banding.....

Bill Callanan DAFM

I will address the issue of banding, which is what the Deputy is getting at. From our perspective, we were operating a single band across all cows. Administratively, that was easy for us. People might not realise it, but the Department performs an administrative check on every single farm for nitrates compliance. The checks are not universal, but we perform checks comparing single farm payments versus farms' animal identification and movement, AIM, data, that is, their livestock, in respect of every farm in the country. It is a large check and quite a number of farmers are non-compliant and suffer a penalty as a consequence.

Moving from a single band will be a challenge, but we are putting our hand up to do that. At European level, most countries were working a banding system and the Commission was adamant that it was a minimum requirement in terms of discussions-----

Deputy Micheal Fitzmaurice

It was the Commission that made Ireland introduce banding?

Mr. Bill Callanan

Absolutely. The Commission was clear on that. The bands, as constructed, are scientifically determined by the nitrates emissions associated with relative categories. I am aware that presentations have been made to the committee. We examined having six bands. There were complications around that. There are pluses and minuses. The structure that is being put in place maximises those in the low and middle bands. Approximately 15% of farms are in the top-----

Banding is an EU requirement, not something dreamed up by our own government. Fact.

Setting the upper band at 7000kg would have resulted in a 118kg N outcome from the calculation for farms in the top category. As the number of farms between 6500 and 7000 is relatively small, the total impact on those farms at the higher level of output would have been more negative if 7000kg cut-off point were used. There will always be a cluster of farms around a certain cut-off point that feel hard done by but if you had say 6 bands then there would be even more famers complaining about being the wrong side of the line. More lines, more marginal cases.

In effect then, whether intended or not (!), the 8000+ litre herds are gaining most by the 6500kg banding as they are not being penalized for their 1500 litres of milk above the threshold. Also, for herds at say 7000, they can drive on now with no additional bands on the horizon to trip them up. The highest output herds have been well treated in this setup.

I agree with you. 8, 9k litres herds are getting away light. The band was set too low. And if lads were not feeding so much to calves, if they had compact calving and if they were recording dry off dates accurately there would be alot more over 6300 litres in reality. As I said, it was a very poor effort from teagasc in coming up with the bands. A guy feeding a ton is treated the same as the guys with the diet feeder and feeding 2 ton.

I think it would be a much fairer system if it reflected the inputs.

I have a high ebi, compact calving, getting as close to 300 days in milk as possible, automatic calf feeder, recording accurate dry off dates and feeding 1 ton of ration. Good grassland management and maximising grass in the diet. I'm treated the same as the guy feeding 2 ton in an indoor system. If I changed to milking the cows once a day I could milk as many as I like. Makes no sense - FACT. 🙄

If I was you straights I would take the wife out for dinner this evening and tell her your sorry and keep the rental cause the reality is that farming in Ireland could go either way so I wouldn't be making any rash decisions based on banding. It's like when the quotas went everyone was freaking out about trying to stay under but the majority of us went over and paid the superlevy and I didn't see any dairy farmer dying of the hunger

Think about that one for a while