Plight of Bull Calves

It's rare that every crop fails....but you could get a yield that's below what it takes to be profitable that year or prices that effectively mean that....there's a reason there aren't that many small tillage operators ...machinery alone costs hundreds of thousands, land rental etc etc.....

It's a risk like most forms of farming or production and the lower you are on the ladder the more of a potential screwing you can be on the end of in any given year..........the food producer is always at the bottom of the pile the way the system works (worldwide- I can't think of many if any examples where the retailer, processor, merchants, and assorted other parasites and middlemens profit margin isnt assured while the poor fucker at the bottom carries the greatest financial risk)

You originally replied to my post to a poster who wants rid of dairy and beef farmers. Look back over your posts.

Compensation is given in those cases as healthy animals are culled too in order to prevent potential spread of the disease. It can also happens that infected animals are still perfectly fine to eat for meat - again they are culled to prevent the potential spread. The compensation usually would not cover the full value of the animal. In addition, if you have zero compensation then you have incentive for unscrupulous operators to try to conceal incidents of the disease.

You cannot have a system where you kill uninfected animals on one holding purely to protect neighbours and give no compensation for that.

You keep querying my posts. If you look back over your posts I think it's pretty obvious your views. Over this complete thread you have been very subtle getting your point across that dairy and beef farmers should just vanish. You don't say it directly but I fully get that you are not a supporter of the beef and dairy farmer. You wouldn't have started this thread if you were. Anyway I don't want to get into an argument with you so thats the end from me

Some interesting points there. Should it not be in the the interest of small farmers to advocate for a cull in the national herd so, given that the explosion in the dairy herd has benefitted only the unscrupulous few and is in fact destroying the livelihood of the small farmer who is only out to make a living?

Culling the herd should make it commercially unviable for said enterprises, and return the land to those who will look after their animals, make a decent living and solve the emission crisis that intensive farming has caused. This makes sense does it not?

You are wishing for a utopia where operators at scale are forced out in favour of smaller less efficient operators which you hope will become profitable due to higher prices received for their produce. Beef processors don't care how many animals you have or how much land, they will screw everyone over the same. Bigger operators can take that screwing through efficiencies. Plus, bigger operators say decide to scale back and sell land. Smaller guys don't have the money to buy. Even this year you seen tillage farmers who depend on land rental being out competed for land by dairy farmers, purely to tick a box on a form to adhere to new nitrates banding. Now the tillage area, despite government supports is lower. Note too that the herd is the same size now as it was in the early 80s.

It's as if there's no easy solution to a problem created by government guidance and processor screwing.

we know they aren't in cahoots because the evidence shows it.

the investigation showed facts in relation to the exportation of the calves.

I would love nothing more than for the small family farm to return. My father had a 60-odd cow dairy farm up to recently and I often considered taking it on. But the market dictates everything and the day of the small-medium farmer is over, unless a niche market (such as organics or selling direct to local markets) can be found. The free market dictates, and the cheap food policy of the EU has resulted in a very tight margin (despite the outlier of the last 2 years) on the price of milk. Ultimately, this tight margin means that the only way to make a decent living is to scale/expand. Unless things change, the big boys are here to stay and will only get bigger imo.

Going by your previous response to my post I'm not assured at all.

Have a read of those comments again....I think you'll find there's at least some semblance of balance and not all posters are reading what they want to read.....while you are at it re-read my posts ...... they absolutely don't boil down to the meaning your reductive response tried to make out.

Now if its not a case that you couldnt grasp that I wasnt saying it hasnt anything to do with some or a small group of farmers (but I was saying it's not the majority of farmers) you either did that deliberately or subconsciously....nor did I say or does my post mean farmers hadn't a hand act or part in it....that would be quite an unusually inaccurate meaning to take from what I posted........just the very fact you appear to think that all or a majority of farmers might be responsible is eye opening to say the least....nevermind the fact that you appear to think what I posted absolves every farmer of blame....to me its at best a real childish petulant response because someone is posting something that doesn't fit your worldview..

If its a mistake fine but if you want to push an agenda and aren't willing to debate then choose another poster to try that shite with.