Farmers in phase two of the BETTER farm programme continued to make money in 2016 despite a bad beef price and having exited the programme at the end of 2015.

Phase two of the BETTER farm beef programme came to a conclusion in 2015, with the group recording an average gross margin figure of €1,029/ha, up from €553/ha at the beginning of the programme in 2011.

A number of bull finishers exceeded €1,800/ha, while a number of live sellers on challenging farms were closer to €500/ha of a gross margin.

While the BETTER farm support and advisory network had moved on to 27 new participant farmers in phase three, data from the e-Profit monitors on the former phase two farms shows that performance was maintained in 2016.

The BETTER farm phase two group recorded a gross margin of €950/ha in 2016; a year where beef price was consistently back around 20c/kg on average relative to 2015.

The suckler to under-16-month bull system proved the most profitable in 2016 on former phase two BETTER farms, averaging €1,345/ha of a gross margin, down from €1,464/ha in 2015. The second most profitable system was the under-20-month bull, at €960/ha, down from €1,178/ha. Suckler to steer farms achieved €936/ha on average (down from €1,082/ha), with store-to-beef farms coming in at €836/ha (up from €785/ha). On the live-selling end, weanling and store producers achieved gross margins of €805/ha (up from €715/ha) and €670/ha (down from €869/ha) respectively.

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New BETTER farmers tour top-performing phase two farms