Common sense for once? Straw incorporation to be suspended for this year?

It's a brain fart by a Minister, incompetent and flapping for votes.

The price of straw was going to dictate that any utilisable straw would make more in a bale than chopped.

There was no need to suspend the scheme.

OSR and Oaten straw will now have to be baled or chopped for nothing…a real bad hit for the cash planning of an already wafer thin margin ed business.

This is confidence sapping for any commercial farmers, to go into contract and have it pulled before payment. (Some already have straw chopped) Nobody's going to believe a word this Minister/Gov/ dept ever come with again.

A slight change he could have made was to remove the clause whereby if a farmer wants to withdraw from the scheme, he wouldn't have to withdraw all their submitted acres. Pay on the OSR and Oats and what's already chopped.

What's been done, if not reversed, will drown the tillage sector of any belief that it is needed in this country.

The rest of us livestock lads better start growing a few acres of grain in future if we continue with the need for straw.

There was a farmer from a different country was buying straw from a wexford ploughman and he was bringing it in from Spain. That's how international straw was getting.

And the farmer was getting grief from tillage farmers from the Republic of Ireland.

A chat gbt wouldn't have dreamt up the above. The farmer had to defend himself that he was doing so as he had an idea there'd be a scarcity so was getting in early to secure supply and it was the wexford ploughman was importing it in from Spain for sale on. The farmer grew his own but needed more for his enterprise. Straw from Spain would go throughout europe but be kind of a new development for here. Same importers would be bringing in French hay for the equestrian market.

There's a man near me buys and sells straw and hay, all cash.

That doesn't mean there's a fiddle.

I know a farmer that pays substantial bills in cash, they have no issue with it, but they have a big issue with one recipient who didn't declare it.

as a beef man the begrudgery and sense of entitlement on this thread is off the charts.

If the dept suddenly pulled the rug under my feet with my SCEP money I’d be raging!

Awful short sighted thinking

I see a point made about tillage farmers giving out about livestock farmers.

It's not long ago a 4x4 bale of straw was selling for 3 euro and a farmer was lucky to get sale. The same amount of livestock were in the country if not more. The scheme broke arrangements and contacts between farmers and tillage farmers could afford and did tell farmers to phuck off. Which they did. I've the same relationship with my supplier but it's through blood. My supplier pointed next door to a neighbour who went all tillage from being mixed and had a local buyer for straw till last year he told him to do one and he availed of the scheme and chopped the lot with glee.

The price went to 35, 40 euro a bale maybe 50 euro delivered in the west of ireland. Farmers were skimping big time on bedding. Straw was being imported from England with livestock farmers there giving out about the chopping scheme in Ireland taking their supply. Recently imports from Spain with tillage farmers here complaining of this situation putting what they saw as their built up artificial price for straw under threat. Artificial is not a slur, it was by the scheme and even there was were bales of straw put in at a local charity event which were bought by another tillage farmer for 50 euro. It's to keep the price up.

What happens now. Those that have a taste for chopping will continue so. There'll be broken relationships anyway so may be better for this year and years. A long time chopping min till farmer where farmers were brought to see chopping has been baling and selling himself these past few years while others broke relationships. Reason he gave was too much carbon in the top of the soil and needed get some away again.

Is he not meant to make money then or are you incapable of making enough to pay him?

Growing feed combinable crops are a waste of time unless you do more than sell at harvest and food in general is getting to be an expensive hobby in the western world with competition that doesn’t have the same production and regulatory standards.

I suppose all the lads that are quick to say this is good news will stock up on all the oaten straw that will be available?

i remember the insulation aid for young farmers taking over the farm was cancelled real fast without any mention of it I'm sure there is more that we're cancelled the same way down the years

It's bad when Jack is the sensible one in the middle....

No problem stocking up with often straw, have being using it for over 20 years under sucklers and sheep and as good as any, some years we get it chopped.

The scheme total allocation is only €12m. Max claimable for those who go into it is €7,000. There's close on 10,000 tillage farmers in the country.

Chambers calculator will be maxed out with you.