DEAR SIR:

Sustainability is the big buzz word at present. Every time you turn on the news someone is talking about sustainable energy like wind and solar power or sustainable agriculture.

This is all very fine, but I think we have to be very clear about what sustainability means. Of course, we have to be able to produce food without destroying the environment. Most farmers know this and try to farm in an environmentally friendly way but problems can arise if we are encouraged to push the boundaries too far.

We never hear about the sustainability of the farmers themselves and their income or lack of it. Beef farming has not been very profitable for a long time and winter finishing has been disastrous.

For winter finishing to be “sustainable”, we need to see prices on an upward curve over the winter finishing period. This year it is static at best and the factories are doing their best to talk down price. To be sustainable for finishers, beef would want to be at €4.20/kg now and rising to at least €4.50/kg by early April. All I can say is thank God I’m finishing very few animals this winter.

For years, the factories have trotted out the mantra that they can only handle 30,000 cattle a week. For the last three months, they have been handling considerably more, but will not pay a viable price.

If 30,000 is the magic number, then the Government will have to abandon the folly of Food Harvest 2020 and Food Wise 2025 as they will merely make paupers of beef farmers.

I noticed that as soon as ICSA mooted an incentive for a voluntary reduction in suckler cow numbers, the factories immediately looked for a subsidy to increase cow numbers. This would only serve to pour oil on the fire. It would be great for the processors but a disaster for farmers. Remember, the voluntary reduction in milk last autumn was the reason the tide turned for dairy farmers.

I think it is time that Teagasc stepped up to the plate for beef farmers. I saw figures recently for dairy calf to beef. At a price of €3.70/kg for beef, a Friesian bull calf is virtually worthless and a Hereford or Angus cross is worth about €100. These figures are to give the cattle farmer a profit of €200 a head. That’s only €8 a month. You would need nearly 200 head to have a decent wage. This is where farmers have to take some responsibility themselves.

They are prepared to pay between €100 and €200 more than this for calves, thus giving away any chance of a profit before they even start. If we take a figure of 500,000 dairy cross bull calves, that’s a transfer of about €75m.

We pay good money every year for a set of accounts. This is not merely for the taxman. Analyse them or get your accountant to do it for you and see where changes should be made before you take out your cheque book.