Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Spring calving??, What kinda % is the MP. The hitch eye must be wore off the zero grazer with that much ground

Nitrates are nitrates, whether they come from the back end of a cow or they come from a fertiliser bag (E Burgess).

A proposal was put forward in the Water Quality committee (instigated by the minister to put forward ideas for lobbing to hold 250), that the derogation limit move to that required by the EU, but that the limit be made up of the combination of chemical and organic, meaning a farmer could choose to stay at 250 organic nut drop chemical to (say) 190...

I believe the minister "got to" the commissioner before this suggestion could get legs.

We now have Ryan with the narrative that derogation farmers can make up their income loss by supplying AD plants with their excess grass.

They will only have excess if they continue with the higher chemical applications.

You can see why the resistance to dropping the chemical application.

One thing you should add on to the figures (and maybe you did) is the amount of money you lose on selling the calves young.

The moving of dero limits from 250 to 220 and the possible lower in the future will have knock on effects for more than the dairy industry. It will affect the beef and tillage trades hugely on more than just the land front.

Coming at it from the beef farmer side of the house the 3 major knock ons will be access to rented ground, which has be debated into a different stratosphere here and I'm not leaving terra ferme. Followed by potential effects to feedlots and finally extra numbers to the weekly kill for the next few months

I don't have figures, but I would suspect a large number of the contracted feeders would be in dero and close to the limits with the numbers of stock the are turning over, relying on imported feed and exporting of slurry. A pinch to these might be welcome to the beef trade, it will have knock on effects to the farmers who rely on the sale of forward stores through the mart,by reducing the numbers these feedlots can buy and finish.

The next is the beef trade for the coming months. The big question is how many are going to cull to get to 220 and if so how. Is the trade going to be presented with a large number of cows out of the parlour pre drying off, or will dairy farmers feed these cull until January. A controlled fashion will be needed. This will be an issue, as I feel most farmers won't be able to get access to enough ground in a limited supply land rental market thus leading to an offload for cows to reach the 220

Calf and incalf heifer sales have the potential to collapse. It's probably happening as we speak with in calf heifers. The calf issue will be interesting in the spring. A number of dairy farmers who may have a sideline of beef enterprise, be calf to beef, calf to store or calf to weanling, will pull the plug on this and offload calves as soon or drop down a peg on that ladder, so as to keep cow numbers up. What will this do in a market that is already flooded from late February to April. Surely the Dept could look to a simple solution on not counting the Nitrates of all animals under 12 weeks. This could help solve some issues.

On the tillage side, and the talk of Charlie's Chequebook coming out to increase tillage area this will further add to the land rental madness. Couple this with the changes of the past few years on the exports of slurry namely the doubling of volume and diesel costs, this makes it even harder

Think we can all agree Ryan is an ass!!

You minimise the loss by taking it earlier ff bull calf sold from dairy enterprise to beef at 2 weeks for 50 and beef calves at 150/180…..

As long as bord bia compliant coop collects your milk ……you don’t have to submit a bps and there is nothing they can do if you don’t …..we’ll bar hound you with letters

When you see the minuscule fines been given out to Irish water/quarries etc in court when convicted of pollution of waterways what about it, it's a 10 times cheaper option than paying 400 euro plus a acre for ground, the current price of milk and what is predicted for next year mean, a lot of heavily borrowed units would be as well selling their entitlement and farm away at present numbers, the likelihood of 170kgs for 26 means what's the point in going out and securing ground to remain compliant at 220 when it's only a stay of execution that will cost you a fortune in rental money

If water quality drops or stays low in an area the council or epa may come in on enforcement as opposed to department

Local Authorities have powers in this regards. You do not want them involved. They can insist you you adhere to stock limits and price it.

Boards bia QA can change conditions of approval at the drop of a hat. They have already regarding calves. It would be easy enough for them to insist you are adhering to department regulations.

Finally there is the new fertilizer register. I would not be surprised if there is not a wee condition in it that the department can withdraw your right to buy fertlizer.

If it became widespread could co-op refuse to collect milk unless you were adhering to department regulations.

€500 an acre would be giving it away