It was a good week

  • For Glanbia, as it had announced plans to invest €160m in a new facility at its Belview site, which is expected to be operational by 2020.

  • For sheep farmers, as prices are running 70c/kg to 80c/kg above last year’s levels.
  • For beef farmers, as factories have increased prices by 5c/kg this week.
  • For farmers and land owners, as the Irish Farmers Journal released the annual Land Price Report this week, which gives a detailed breakdown of land prices in Ireland for 2017.
  • For Irish farmers, as despite poor weather conditions they showed great character to help rural life continue as normally as possible by clearing snow off the roads during the storm.

    • Bad week for

  • For Fonterra, as its latest update shows that the co-op's milk collections for January was down 8% compared with the same period last year.
  • For livestock farmers, as fodder demand has increased significantly after Storm Emma.
  • For livestock farmers, as slurry tanks that had been emptied are close to capacity again, with little prospect of getting out on land before the weekend due to the recent poor weather.
  • For farmers who are counting the costs of the devastation caused by Storm Emma.