Decline of the Farmers Journal

Kerry2021 · 20-07-2023 10:18am #1

Sad to say it but in my opinion the Farmers Journal newspaper has gone into a “death spiral”. Gigantic decline in the quality of what is written in the paper.

I think a more befitting name of the paper would be “the hipster hobby farmer journal” or all jokes aside “the weekly nature magazine”.

There isn’t much in it for serious farmers, there is nothing that I ever read in their paper now that I can actually put into practical use on my farm.

In my opinion Agriland is 100x superior. The Agriland app is clearly lightyears ahead of the farmers journal app, the Agriland app is so much more streamlined and easy to use. Agriland is obviously free to use as well. Hypothetically I think if Agriland were charging the same amount of money as the farmers journal are I would still rather subscribe to Agriland.

I find it myself that even the worthwhile articles in the farmers journal are just a rehashing of the same things that would have been free to read on the Agriland app for the previous week.

The Farmers Journal seem unwilling to tackle the serious issues facing farming. They’d be more interested writing about the price of goats in a mart in Galway. There’s so much talk about the environment nowadays, with all the supplements included there must be 100 pages in the farmers journal each week, look how wasteful that is dumping all that paper versus an online app like Agriland.

I couldn’t help but notice as well that the farmers journal lost a great journalist back a couple years ago, the guys who replaced him just don’t seem to be able to pick up the slack.

Box09 · 20-07-2023 11:39am

It has been in decline for years, especially, since Matt left as editor. Hopefully Jack can make a go of it, give him time. The quality of reporting is so poor, grammar is bad, headlines are very misleading, no substance to articles. I only buy it the odd time, waste of money.

Kerry2021 · 20-07-2023 12:29pm

Ya it feels like I’m just throwing away my money whenever I’m buying their paper, I see it as a bad habit. I’d have it skimmed through in 2 minutes.

I find them very biased to the point that it’s actually painful. I cringe reading a lot of their stuff, when it gets to anything anywhere close to “agri-business” they usually get half it wrong.

The “milk price league table” that the farmers journal do is geared in such a way to drive their own narrative in my opinion. They always have kerry group down at the pits and fail to take in basic stuff like top up payments and bonus payments for low somatic cell and they’ve people driven off the head then with kerry below at the bottom of the table. Agriland had a milk price league table lately and it was much easier understand and far more accurate

roosterman71 · 20-07-2023 1:05pm

Ya don't work for Agriland do ya?

Say my name · 20-07-2023 1:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120874896#Comment_120874896

Bit of a blitzkrieg here with unknown posters.😅

Kerry2021 · 20-07-2023 3:34pm

How about yourself Roosterman, ya don't work for the farmers journal do ya?

As for the second guy, nobody that I’ve ever seen has their own actual name or photo on their profile

Would you both not agree that Agriland is streets ahead of the farmers Journal? Agriland has the better app by far and free. It’s no competition

patsy_mccabe · 20-07-2023 3:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120874896#Comment_120874896

No, he doesn't work for AGRILAND .

roosterman71 · 20-07-2023 3:50pm

I don't. I was only pulling yer leg cos it reads like a promotional piece for Agriland!

I look at both. I'd say the IFJ have a much broader coverage of things. If you follow both publications on twitter, the IFJ often link to more stuff that Agriland doesn't bother to cover. Maybe I'm looking at a perspective of things I'd have an interest in, but it is something I've noticed.

I don't use the IFJ app. Can't comment on that.

Agriland website is easier navigate but it's far from perfect. Switching URLs as you scroll down is a pain in the hole if you want to share the original article. By time yer at the bottom of it the URL has changed to the next story that's loaded so you end up sharing the wrong URL (if you do work for them, there's free feedback!). The IFJ website isn't as easy navigate, and the subscription thing is a pain in the hole, though can be worked around in some cases. Even some articles require you to sign in to read, which when you do sign in either a) redirects you to the home page or b) makes no odds and asks you to sign in. The site needs a lot of usability improvements in my view.

I think both have their place and Agriland has a better user experience, but the IFJ more content.

Finally, welcome to the forum. Stay, enjoy and interact but for all our sanity, don't attack us :-)

Kerry2021 · 20-07-2023 3:56pm

Thank you for the comment. Something I said to myself was lately was that IFJ costs more per month that Netflix or Now TV, in the space of a month there might be no more than a half dozen genuinely interesting articles in the farmers journal. I don’t think it’s any value for money. If Agriland tidied themselves up a bit I think it would be game over for IFJ

roosterman71 · 20-07-2023 4:19pm

I don't know if I'd say that. Agriland would need to up their game. The IFJ is pretty big and have people attending all sorts of things and are being fed information from all sorts of places. Agriland is way way behind in terms of access to information, or they aren't arsed going to get it and publishing it

amacca · 20-07-2023 10:01pm

I think the farmers journal is more or less a propaganda fluff piece for a certain farming ideology and a shill paper for **** you probably don't need myself.

If I'd bought what they are selling...I'd be bankrupt by now I'd say.

I like the classifieds though🤠

Kerry2021 · 20-07-2023 10:02pm

Yes i definitely agree with you Jjameson. The farmers journal in my opinion print stupid stuff occasionally to try get a reaction from whoever the opposing side is. Last week they’d a letter in the paper for instance about a Co op which I won’t name.

the letter was calling for a vote on something which less than 5% of the Co-ops shareholders voted for back in 2019 and it has since come out that the vote in 2019 should of never happened because legally it just wasn’t right according to said Co-ops own legal advice and that’s totally public knowledge and yet every few months the farmers journal print another embarrassing letter about the same rubbish and don’t allow anyone to have a response published. When a newspaper becomes biased like that they lose all credibility

wrangler · 20-07-2023 10:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120876261#Comment_120876261

Whatever IFJ are doing there's a demand for it,

It's a successful business, pays people salaries. Clearly your opinion of IFJ are not the opinion of the majority.

Not only do they run their own free farming events but they are to the fore in helping other organisations as well, eg AG shows, Grassland Association, IFA.

Must really annoy the hell outa you that they're still around, seeing that you think they're doing it wrong since Decoupling.

Kerry2021 · 20-07-2023 10:57pm

hi wrangler. Best of luck to them. Hope they’re making a fortune. My subscription isn’t due to run out for another 2 weeks though and as a paid up customer I genuinely feel it’s dreadful value for money. I think 95% of their articles are pure waffle.

their paper is going to be finished in a generation. Younger people want nuggets of info like what is found in tiktok videos, they won’t be sitting down to read the farmers journal to see what the grass growth was like on the side of a hill in Co Mayo this July versus the previous 7 July’s.

I’ll put it to you this way, if the farmers journal newspaper was to become a publicly listed company in the morning then I’d be in no rush to buy their shares at 5 cent in the euro. Even the print media that is actually good is finished, never mind a washed up newspaper that old folks buy to read to pass the time

MIKEKC · 20-07-2023 11:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058305788/decline-of-the-farmers-journal

Agriland.hardly worries whether facts are true. In a recent article a farmer stated that he would have to cut cow numbers by 13 and would loose 40,000 Can't find the article at the minute

50HX · 20-07-2023 11:25pm

It has its place & still appeals to a certain cohort of readers.

The father here still looks forward to it every week & the country living section my mother still reads.

In the age of click bait & so much information (right or wrong) available on line I hope it stays going & esp in print form

Your original "befitting" name for paper is wide of the mark, yes some of the items are repetitive in nature but still have a value imo.

Agriland is ok but alot of articles are sponsored.....I wouldn't be so quick to call the demise of the ifj just yet...it is a v established brand name

Kerry2021 · 20-07-2023 11:31pm

I’d agree with you about the brand name part 50HX, take that away from them and what have they then though? A lot of people buy it on a Thursday for the same reason they go to mass on a Sunday, just because that’s the way it’s always been. It’ll be a death by 1,000 cuts for the IFJ, we’ll have a lot more of their biased articles to stomach for another while yet

i think since their journalist Lorcan Allen left it’s all gone totally downhill IMHO

wrangler · 21-07-2023 8:24am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120877770#Comment_120877770

I don't really read the IFJ as i'm not a farmer any more, OH gets it online and I'd read potterton or Karen mc cabe if they were on

At the moment IFJ is more sustainable than most of the farms in the country, They are unsubsidised and provide proper employment, they work hard and divert some of their profits back to their readers education.

Kerry2021 · 21-07-2023 8:42am

I think the farming supplement of the Independent newspaper that comes out on Tuesdays is a great example of what a print newspaper should be. It covers all the vital topics, hard hitting topics and isn’t afraid to tackle the hard topics. Darragh McCullogh is a powerful journalist, he doesn’t have any bias and just calls it as it is.

Over the years the farmers journal has failed time and time and time again to cover important stories. I don’t know why they’re so cowardly

roosterman71 · 21-07-2023 9:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120878396#Comment_120878396

Ya were going good in the thread but saying McCullagh doesn't have any bias is bull as far as I'm concerned

50HX · 21-07-2023 1:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120878542#Comment_120878542

+1

Say my name · 21-07-2023 1:22pm

Experiment #1.

Kerry dairy farmers..

Discuss.😁

whelan2 · 21-07-2023 1:24pm

How much is a paper copy of the journal now?

roosterman71 · 21-07-2023 1:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120879577#Comment_120879577

€3.60

They have the offer now for €199 and they'll post it every week plus give ya Tullamore Show tickets and a body warmer

Kerry2021 · 21-07-2023 1:32pm

It’s about €4, obviously some months have 5 Thursdays so you could end up paying €20 in 1 month to read the farmers journal. I get both Netflix & NOW TV for about the same as that

last weeks farmers journal had a letter in it, the letter claimed a certain Co op organised protests outside the offices of the PLC company that the Co op is the biggest shareholder in. It couldn’t have been any further from the truth, it was completely wrong but it was driving more division again. If they could report things accurately it would be some sort of start anyway

farawaygrass · 21-07-2023 5:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120879592#Comment_120879592

I just took up that offer. Myself and the parents read it so it gets good usage. It was the two tullamore tickets that really sold it for me, plus the fact I have one receipt now for the accountant whereas before I wouldn’t have sent in any.

for all the bashing about it I have to say I missed reading it for a 7 or 8 weeks earlier this year and I found I was out of the loop a bit. Definitely some articles are page fillers but obviously anyone can pick and choose what to read.

im reading it here at the moment with a cuppa and looking out at the wind and rain, and it’s not an hour wasted I feel

MIKEKC · 21-07-2023 5:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120874314#Comment_120874314

Wouldn't have much faith in Jack .A few weeks ago he put the cost of producing a litre of milk at 40 cent while most other commentators put it at 25 cent

Sheep breeder · 21-07-2023 6:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120880938#Comment_120880938

Is it Jack Kennedy the lad in the Celtic tiger to invest off farm and buy apartments in far flung places.

Kerry2021 · 21-07-2023 7:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120880983#Comment_120880983

I never before heard about that with the apartments, could you tell us more please?

Packrat · 21-07-2023 7:55pm

To be fair, I mostly agree with the OP.

I find very little of relevance to me in the Journal anymore and feel conned anytime I waste my money buying a copy.

I also find Agriland and the Indo Tuesday supplement better. I've a sub to the Indo simply for that, (because the rest of it is very poor to average)

In general I find the Journal to be Teagasc/IFA propaganda more so than actual news.

Furze99 · 21-07-2023 7:59pm

Would the Farmers Journal be classified as a newspaper or a magazine I wonder?

Decline of the Farmers Journal

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