Next Tuesday, suckler and beef farmers are expected to flock from right across the country to the Tullamore Court Hotel for the first BETTER farm beef conference. The conference will mark the end of the second phase of the programme, which started four years ago and will include details and key findings of the first and second phase of the programme.
The conference itself is free to farmers and open to anyone who would like to attend. However, seats will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. The conference is a must for any enthusiastic suckler or beef farmer who is looking to expand his/her enterprise or anyone looking at what can improve profitability on their farm.
Poster session
Between 1pm and 2pm, there will be a poster presentation given by the 31 farmer participants and by researchers who have analysed various data across the farms in the past few years. This session will give an opportunity for farmers and advisers the opportunity for one-on-one discussions with the participating farmers in the programme and to get firsthand information about the research work which has taken place on the farms over the past few years.
Profitability up by 23%
The main conference will kick off with programme manager Alan Dillon giving a comprehensive overview of the financial performance of the farms over the course of the four-year programme. The headline figures have been striking. In 2015, the average gross margin across all 31 farms increased by 23% or €193/ha vs 2014 performance. The average gross margin in 2015 surpassed the €1,000/ha mark, with many farmers reaching their targets.
The majority of the increase in margin from 2014 to 2015 was derived from improvements on farms, with just 8% of this coming from improvements in the marketplace in terms of live cattle prices and beef prices. There was an increase of 0.1 LU/ha in stocking rate across the farms in that year and output increased by €78/ha or by 10%.
Output value, one of the key drivers of profit, increased to €1,914/ha on average, or by 12%. At the same time, variable costs increased by just 2% or €13/ha which meant that the majority of the increased input went straight into the farmers’ pockets.
Bull systems produced highest profit in 2015
Analysis of the top 10 profit monitor results shows that farmers in suckler-to-beef systems, finishing bulls were among those who delivered the highest gross margins at €1,464/ha, followed closely by those finishing older bulls under 20 months, who had an average gross margin of €1,082/ha last year.
Table 1 shows that those producing store cattle, those in a trading system and those producing weanlings all had lower gross margins of €715/ha to €869/ha depending on the system.
With farmers producing weanlings attaining the lowest gross margin, this does bring the economics of keeping the suckler cow into question. However, most weanling producers in the programme are in the west or northwest, and they were faced with very poor summers in terms of weather. Undoubtedly this would have led to slightly poorer gross margins resulting from higher costs and slightly lower output.
High store cattle prices led to slightly reduced margins for those operating trading systems last year. However, farmers producing store cattle only saw modest gross margins of €869/ha on average, highlighting the fact that although last year saw strong live cattle prices, an upper limit on stocking rate due to the requirements of keeping the suckler cow did have an effect on limiting output and the capability of the system to obtain very high margins.
We should also be mindful that although the bull finishers achieved the highest margins as a group, the fact that the majority added to the profitability of their own system by buying in bulls for finishing did boost profitability last year.
2014 saw those finishing bulls being faced with a very different marketplace in terms of the ability to get animals slaughtered and the price they obtained. A tighter supply of cattle in 2015 saw greater demand for young bulls and a more favourable market for buying bulls suitable for finishing due to the move away from bulls after 2014. There is no doubt that these issues would have been factors leading to the higher margins in the bull beef system last year.
Grassland management
After the initial overview of the profitability of the systems by Alan Dillon, the first of three interview sessions will take place with a panel of three farmers at each.
Under the grassland managment session, Des Beirne, Longford, Tomas Murphy, Laois, and David Walsh, Tipperary, will take to the stage to outline the key things they have implemented on their farms in relation to grassland management and improving total grass growth to meet the requirements of the increased stocking rates.
Des Beirne and his father Frank increased the stocking rate of the farm from 1.66 LU/ha in 2011 to 2.17 LU/ha last year. The farm is heavy in nature and along with increasing the volume of grass grown, they run a bull beef system centred on turning bulls out to grass in the spring for a period before housing for finishing. This system is one of the most difficult to run in terms of grassland management.
David Walsh has invested heavily in improving paddock infrastructure on his farm in Tipperary. Additional drinkers and paddocks have been put in place to reduce the length of time cattle are grazing each paddock. In addition, he has put a huge emphasis on extending the grazing season to reduce silage usage and to improve liveweight gains.
Tomas Murphy farms a fragmented holding in Durrow in Laois. He has moved to 100% spring calving and operates a calf-to-beef/store system. He has increased the stocking rate and invested in soil fertility and the grazing infrastructure on the farm. Having a spring-calving herd means that grass demand early in the year is high and it increases from then on to the autumn.
Tomas will explain the key changes he has made in terms of grass management and how that has enabled him to cope with higher numbers and increase the performance of the stock.
Improvements in breeding
Breeding is one of the key components of a successful suckler system. In this section, the panel will consist of Ger Dineen, Cork, Marty Lenehan, Sligo, and Tom Halpin from Meath. All three have had a strong focus on breeding for several years. In light of the current BDGP, the farmers will discuss what they were looking for in breeding the ideal suckler cows down through the years, even well before the programme. They will focus on milk, survivability and the breed type in delivering an animal suitable for the market they are producing for. One other key area of focus will be on the timing of calving on the farms, tightening the calving spread and culling and replacements policy.
Herd health
Improving herd health was a major focus on the farms in phase one of the programme. In phase two there was an equal emphasis on health. Herd health plans were developed for each farm in conjunction with their vet at the start of the programme, and these were tweaked along the way. The panel in this section will contain Heinz Eggert, Kildare, James Strain, Donegal, and Patrick Grennan, Wexford.
The focus on herd health on Heinz’s farm will look back to when he joined phase one of the programme and how the plan has developed since then. James Strain will discuss herd health on a suckler-to-weanling enterprise, focusing on minimising disease and vaccinations, while Patrick Grennan will look at disease on his farm, the herd health plan and coping with a quick increase in stocking rate on the farm.
Grassland production and profitability
Peter Varley is currently completing a study looking at the grass growth achieved across the farms in the programme. The objective of this study is to quantify the grassland production and profitability of Irish BETTER beef farms and in turn evaluate the factors that influence grass production and profitability variables. Spring dry matter (DM) production was found to have a significant relationship with total DM production on the BETTER farms (R2 = 0.61, P = 0.001).
The total annual rainfall, the mean temperature and mean soil temperature did not have a significant effect on total DM production. There was a positive but weak correlation between soil pH and total grass growth (R2 = 0.27, P = 0.065). The main conclusions of the study have been:
The total grass DM production varied substantially in the BETTER beef farms of this study.A farm’s spring DM production, total number of grazings achieved in the year and opening grass covers at the beginning of the year had a significant effect on the total DM production and grazing DM production.The number of grazings achieved in 2014 were low given the high grass DM production.Improving farmer engagement in herd health
planning and biosecurity
Teri Acheson was involved in a study carried out on discussion groups within the BETTER farm programme, and those outside the programme with a view to seeing if the programme had a more positive impact on herd health and biosecurity in those groups compared to groups outside the programme.
Previous studies show deficiencies in herd health and biosecurity on Irish farms. This study offers the chance to increase farmers awareness of key methods that will help improve understanding and participation in this area. Working with the Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER farm beef programme provides the best transfer tool for these improvements in the sector. The key findings of the study were:
Overall, there is a positive approach to herd health on beef farms in Ireland. However, current practices in place did not match the optimal level that is needed to control and prevent disease spread.No significant difference in herd health was found between the BETTER and non-BETTER farm groups. This indicated that although herd health was a key component of the BETTER farm programme it had no impact on the level of uptake.A gap in the use of vaccination as a control method for disease spread was identified. This was principally due to a lack of clinical cases identified at farm level.Those with a herd health plan in place were more proactive, with biocontainment practices and vaccinations at farm level.The booklet distributed to farmers was considered a beneficial knowledge transfer tool to have for sourcing information and for guidance when carrying out vaccinations. Overall it increased awareness of vaccinations and biocontainment practices and encouraged uptake of practices at farm level.
Key ingredients for
effective farmer learning through knowledge
transfer events
Sean Mannion undertook a study looking at knowledge transfer events such as farm walks, demonstrations and conferences to evaluate how effective they are as a means of disseminating information to farmers on various aspects of technical efficiency.
This project covered various other events outside the programme including sheep and dairy events. Surveys were completed at two BETTER farm events in 2015, one on the farm of David Walsh in Tipperary, and the second on the farm of Michael Smith in Cavan. In total, approximately 400 farmers attended the two farm walks and approximately 50 were surveyed.
Key Findings from two BETTER beef events:
100% stated that the events met (59%) or exceeded (41%) their expectations.67% stated that they were no improvements that they would recommend to the way information was presented.Visually seeing a practice in action and being able to ask questions was regarded as being very important, and the preference for many farmers.According to respondents, peer-to-peer communication is very important for learning.45% of the farmers were not part of a discussion group.Review of advisory tools and methodologies to
engage with “hard to reach” drystock farmers
Joanne Masterson undertook this study to establish the influence of the BETTER Farm Beef Programme in a local area with regard to adoption of practices undertaken in the programme by a local BETTER Farm, Joe Murray Elphin (Farm utilised for study).
The study was undertaken in the Roscommon/Longford region which contains approximately 6,543 cattle farms.
Key findings – influence of BETTER farm:
High uptake of reseeding and drainage practices adopted in local discussion group and surrounding local area – improved silage quality due to this change.Farmers learn and get advice from BETTER farm participant.Increased stocking rate – future target for farmers.Influenced by other
BETTER farm participants’ beef systems.Farmers benchmark themselves against BETTER farm participants.
Next Tuesday, suckler and beef farmers are expected to flock from right across the country to the Tullamore Court Hotel for the first BETTER farm beef conference. The conference will mark the end of the second phase of the programme, which started four years ago and will include details and key findings of the first and second phase of the programme.
The conference itself is free to farmers and open to anyone who would like to attend. However, seats will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. The conference is a must for any enthusiastic suckler or beef farmer who is looking to expand his/her enterprise or anyone looking at what can improve profitability on their farm.
Poster session
Between 1pm and 2pm, there will be a poster presentation given by the 31 farmer participants and by researchers who have analysed various data across the farms in the past few years. This session will give an opportunity for farmers and advisers the opportunity for one-on-one discussions with the participating farmers in the programme and to get firsthand information about the research work which has taken place on the farms over the past few years.
Profitability up by 23%
The main conference will kick off with programme manager Alan Dillon giving a comprehensive overview of the financial performance of the farms over the course of the four-year programme. The headline figures have been striking. In 2015, the average gross margin across all 31 farms increased by 23% or €193/ha vs 2014 performance. The average gross margin in 2015 surpassed the €1,000/ha mark, with many farmers reaching their targets.
The majority of the increase in margin from 2014 to 2015 was derived from improvements on farms, with just 8% of this coming from improvements in the marketplace in terms of live cattle prices and beef prices. There was an increase of 0.1 LU/ha in stocking rate across the farms in that year and output increased by €78/ha or by 10%.
Output value, one of the key drivers of profit, increased to €1,914/ha on average, or by 12%. At the same time, variable costs increased by just 2% or €13/ha which meant that the majority of the increased input went straight into the farmers’ pockets.
Bull systems produced highest profit in 2015
Analysis of the top 10 profit monitor results shows that farmers in suckler-to-beef systems, finishing bulls were among those who delivered the highest gross margins at €1,464/ha, followed closely by those finishing older bulls under 20 months, who had an average gross margin of €1,082/ha last year.
Table 1 shows that those producing store cattle, those in a trading system and those producing weanlings all had lower gross margins of €715/ha to €869/ha depending on the system.
With farmers producing weanlings attaining the lowest gross margin, this does bring the economics of keeping the suckler cow into question. However, most weanling producers in the programme are in the west or northwest, and they were faced with very poor summers in terms of weather. Undoubtedly this would have led to slightly poorer gross margins resulting from higher costs and slightly lower output.
High store cattle prices led to slightly reduced margins for those operating trading systems last year. However, farmers producing store cattle only saw modest gross margins of €869/ha on average, highlighting the fact that although last year saw strong live cattle prices, an upper limit on stocking rate due to the requirements of keeping the suckler cow did have an effect on limiting output and the capability of the system to obtain very high margins.
We should also be mindful that although the bull finishers achieved the highest margins as a group, the fact that the majority added to the profitability of their own system by buying in bulls for finishing did boost profitability last year.
2014 saw those finishing bulls being faced with a very different marketplace in terms of the ability to get animals slaughtered and the price they obtained. A tighter supply of cattle in 2015 saw greater demand for young bulls and a more favourable market for buying bulls suitable for finishing due to the move away from bulls after 2014. There is no doubt that these issues would have been factors leading to the higher margins in the bull beef system last year.
Grassland management
After the initial overview of the profitability of the systems by Alan Dillon, the first of three interview sessions will take place with a panel of three farmers at each.
Under the grassland managment session, Des Beirne, Longford, Tomas Murphy, Laois, and David Walsh, Tipperary, will take to the stage to outline the key things they have implemented on their farms in relation to grassland management and improving total grass growth to meet the requirements of the increased stocking rates.
Des Beirne and his father Frank increased the stocking rate of the farm from 1.66 LU/ha in 2011 to 2.17 LU/ha last year. The farm is heavy in nature and along with increasing the volume of grass grown, they run a bull beef system centred on turning bulls out to grass in the spring for a period before housing for finishing. This system is one of the most difficult to run in terms of grassland management.
David Walsh has invested heavily in improving paddock infrastructure on his farm in Tipperary. Additional drinkers and paddocks have been put in place to reduce the length of time cattle are grazing each paddock. In addition, he has put a huge emphasis on extending the grazing season to reduce silage usage and to improve liveweight gains.
Tomas Murphy farms a fragmented holding in Durrow in Laois. He has moved to 100% spring calving and operates a calf-to-beef/store system. He has increased the stocking rate and invested in soil fertility and the grazing infrastructure on the farm. Having a spring-calving herd means that grass demand early in the year is high and it increases from then on to the autumn.
Tomas will explain the key changes he has made in terms of grass management and how that has enabled him to cope with higher numbers and increase the performance of the stock.
Improvements in breeding
Breeding is one of the key components of a successful suckler system. In this section, the panel will consist of Ger Dineen, Cork, Marty Lenehan, Sligo, and Tom Halpin from Meath. All three have had a strong focus on breeding for several years. In light of the current BDGP, the farmers will discuss what they were looking for in breeding the ideal suckler cows down through the years, even well before the programme. They will focus on milk, survivability and the breed type in delivering an animal suitable for the market they are producing for. One other key area of focus will be on the timing of calving on the farms, tightening the calving spread and culling and replacements policy.
Herd health
Improving herd health was a major focus on the farms in phase one of the programme. In phase two there was an equal emphasis on health. Herd health plans were developed for each farm in conjunction with their vet at the start of the programme, and these were tweaked along the way. The panel in this section will contain Heinz Eggert, Kildare, James Strain, Donegal, and Patrick Grennan, Wexford.
The focus on herd health on Heinz’s farm will look back to when he joined phase one of the programme and how the plan has developed since then. James Strain will discuss herd health on a suckler-to-weanling enterprise, focusing on minimising disease and vaccinations, while Patrick Grennan will look at disease on his farm, the herd health plan and coping with a quick increase in stocking rate on the farm.
Grassland production and profitability
Peter Varley is currently completing a study looking at the grass growth achieved across the farms in the programme. The objective of this study is to quantify the grassland production and profitability of Irish BETTER beef farms and in turn evaluate the factors that influence grass production and profitability variables. Spring dry matter (DM) production was found to have a significant relationship with total DM production on the BETTER farms (R2 = 0.61, P = 0.001).
The total annual rainfall, the mean temperature and mean soil temperature did not have a significant effect on total DM production. There was a positive but weak correlation between soil pH and total grass growth (R2 = 0.27, P = 0.065). The main conclusions of the study have been:
The total grass DM production varied substantially in the BETTER beef farms of this study.A farm’s spring DM production, total number of grazings achieved in the year and opening grass covers at the beginning of the year had a significant effect on the total DM production and grazing DM production.The number of grazings achieved in 2014 were low given the high grass DM production.Improving farmer engagement in herd health
planning and biosecurity
Teri Acheson was involved in a study carried out on discussion groups within the BETTER farm programme, and those outside the programme with a view to seeing if the programme had a more positive impact on herd health and biosecurity in those groups compared to groups outside the programme.
Previous studies show deficiencies in herd health and biosecurity on Irish farms. This study offers the chance to increase farmers awareness of key methods that will help improve understanding and participation in this area. Working with the Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER farm beef programme provides the best transfer tool for these improvements in the sector. The key findings of the study were:
Overall, there is a positive approach to herd health on beef farms in Ireland. However, current practices in place did not match the optimal level that is needed to control and prevent disease spread.No significant difference in herd health was found between the BETTER and non-BETTER farm groups. This indicated that although herd health was a key component of the BETTER farm programme it had no impact on the level of uptake.A gap in the use of vaccination as a control method for disease spread was identified. This was principally due to a lack of clinical cases identified at farm level.Those with a herd health plan in place were more proactive, with biocontainment practices and vaccinations at farm level.The booklet distributed to farmers was considered a beneficial knowledge transfer tool to have for sourcing information and for guidance when carrying out vaccinations. Overall it increased awareness of vaccinations and biocontainment practices and encouraged uptake of practices at farm level.
Key ingredients for
effective farmer learning through knowledge
transfer events
Sean Mannion undertook a study looking at knowledge transfer events such as farm walks, demonstrations and conferences to evaluate how effective they are as a means of disseminating information to farmers on various aspects of technical efficiency.
This project covered various other events outside the programme including sheep and dairy events. Surveys were completed at two BETTER farm events in 2015, one on the farm of David Walsh in Tipperary, and the second on the farm of Michael Smith in Cavan. In total, approximately 400 farmers attended the two farm walks and approximately 50 were surveyed.
Key Findings from two BETTER beef events:
100% stated that the events met (59%) or exceeded (41%) their expectations.67% stated that they were no improvements that they would recommend to the way information was presented.Visually seeing a practice in action and being able to ask questions was regarded as being very important, and the preference for many farmers.According to respondents, peer-to-peer communication is very important for learning.45% of the farmers were not part of a discussion group.Review of advisory tools and methodologies to
engage with “hard to reach” drystock farmers
Joanne Masterson undertook this study to establish the influence of the BETTER Farm Beef Programme in a local area with regard to adoption of practices undertaken in the programme by a local BETTER Farm, Joe Murray Elphin (Farm utilised for study).
The study was undertaken in the Roscommon/Longford region which contains approximately 6,543 cattle farms.
Key findings – influence of BETTER farm:
High uptake of reseeding and drainage practices adopted in local discussion group and surrounding local area – improved silage quality due to this change.Farmers learn and get advice from BETTER farm participant.Increased stocking rate – future target for farmers.Influenced by other
BETTER farm participants’ beef systems.Farmers benchmark themselves against BETTER farm participants. 
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