The past two to three years seem to have been driven forward by the catchphrase “Food Harvest 2020 targets”.

This very simple quote has a lot to answer for with regards farming for the last three years. I don’t know how many people, in particular farmers, who have taken the time to sit down and read this very detailed document, but if you haven’t, I would highly recommend you do.

The whole document covers all sectors from dairy to pigmeat. Even though this document came together due to the involvement of a large number of people, they were all a very optimistic bunch as it keeps referring to the three key words;”smart”, “green” and “growth”.

They were in practice meant to hold the key to all of our success, but as we know putting paper to practice can mean a very different outcome. These three words have impacted on beef farming in a different manner then their original intention and far beyond any of our expectations.

Penalised

We have been penalised for being “smart”. By improving genetics in our suckler herd, moving to bull beef and improving our overall efficiency as an industry, we have been rewarded with a one euro a kilo drop in the factory price in last 12 months. It encourages the move into young bull beef but didn’t categorise what “young bull beef” refers to in terms of age (both from the beef and dairy herds) and we all know what that meant to farmers last spring.

For being “green” we have had all rural development supports removed. These schemes such as “REPS” transformed the countryside. Creating tidy farm yards and fields with neatly trimmed hedgerows and environmentally friendly habitats in areas that were unsuitable for tilling or productive farming.

Now instead of being well maintained, areas of the West of Ireland are growing wild and out of control because of the insufficient numbers of suckler cows and financial supports for good environmental practice.

Increased output

The final crippling blow was a recommended 20% increase in the value of our output. So does this mean more beef animals with less quality or more quality and less animals? Both ways we look at it, it has failed the farmer.

The so-called “quality assured” animals were no longer quality assured and the top quality animals were no longer wanted because they didn’t taste as good as the Hereford and Angus cattle that were lesser quality six months ago.

Naive or mislead

So we can’t be blamed for being a moaning bunch as it’s proving to be awfully confusing. Were we naïve or mislead? I can’t distinguish but the impacts of the last 12 months have certainly rocked beef farming, with most finishers left grasping at straws in which direction to go or standstill.

I think this should provide a stark reminder to the dairy industry that’s been driven to a 50% increase in output.