The AIB stand at this years’ National Ploughing Championships played host to a series of shed talks taking place throughout each of the event days.

The talks, chaired by RTÉ’s Helen Carol, centred on topics such as farm investments, work/life balance, farm succession and markets outlooks, with Irish Farmers Journal and Teagasc specialists present for discussion.

Three million tonnes

Of most interest to farmers in the audience during the day was the talk on fodder which took place at 1.15pm each day.

I went along to the fodder talk on Tuesday where Teagasc's Alan Dillon and Joe Patton, along with AIB's Chris Nolan were talking about the current fodder situation on farms facing into winter 2018.

Joe Patton, dairy specialist in Teagasc, said: “Nationally, we are short about 3m tones of fodder, which, on the general scheme of what we feed in this country, isn’t major.”

Patton also said: “Maybe one thing we are looking at is making a provision to purchase in fodder one year in five because it’s going to be very difficult to conserve enough surpluses on farms with high stocking rates.”

He also said that people really need to reconsider carrying passengers on the farm just to keep numbers up and to consider the feed space in their sheds and the ways of feeding out fodder.

Draw the line

Teagasc beef specialist Alan Dillon said: “If you draw a line from Clare to Monaghan, farmers above that line seem to be doing fine. Farmers below that seem to be getting progressively worse the further south you go in terms of winter fodder.

“A lot of guys bought their way out of trouble, but that’s going to cost a lot – and that probably is not going to be felt until next year,” he added.

When asked if grazing late into this autumn was a solution, Dillon was quick to be hesitant about that idea: “We are still telling farmers to follow the rules and close-off paddocks at the start of October or you’re talking about no turn out until May.”

Financing

AIB's Chris Nolan went through the finance options for farmers. “If guys can get deficit down to 20% to 25%, it should be fairly manageable,” he said.

On the supports being offered by the bank, he said: “We don’t have one particular product for fodder support, because we feel that one size doesn’t fit all.”

He went on to say that, because of this, there are a number of options for farmers from AIB, including a short-term increase in working capital, retrospectively altering finance and/or availing of a short-term loan option.

“So far, up until now, it’s been pretty much business as usual – there hasn’t been a huge influx in farmers coming into us to look for help. And we know that by looking at the usage of overdraft facilities in accounts.

"Merchants, co-ops and contractors have, so far, been carrying the debt. Farmers are still waiting to see what is going to happen with growth and grazing conditions.”

To conclude, Nolan suggested that “the first thing farmers need to do is to sit down and quantify what their requirement is going to be, both in terms of cash and fodder. The earlier you go to the bank the better.”