It’s Ploughing time again! It’s weird it being a little earlier this year. I’ve the good wellies washed and I am ready to meet some of you loyal readers. It’s a great opportunity to hear what’s really going on out there and there’s a lot – from progress to going backwards. There’s always some group in strife. This year, it’s the beef farmers. We’ll take the opportunity to listen. We’ll hear too from the farmers looking for votes in the forthcoming IFA elections. I don’t envy them one bit.

Cartoon by Clyde Delaney.

With Brexit and Mercosur, climate change and a focus on biodiversity, animal welfare and beef protests ongoing, they will have to be careful of making promises they can’t keep. Meanwhile, we must listen to the consumers of our produce. We must educate them at every hands turn so that they will be happy to pay a fair price for the premium traceable food we produce.

Market broken

Reading the Irish Farmers Journal last week, I took one very clear message from it and it isn’t a new one. One farmer said, “The market is broken”, with regard to figures, every farmer has to ask, “Where is my reality?” I often advocate in this column the need for doing the figures and knowing the business.

I do not like the undercurrents of pitching the beef farmer against the dairy farmer.

Both industries are quite separate in one sense, but they are also dependant on each other. I hear the beef farmer say, “I’d much rather pay big money for the suckler calf than €70 for a Friesian bull calf”.

Why is it taking so long (19 years since the first beef blockade) to have transparency on beef figures?

That’s fine, but do the figures, they might deliver you a profit also. The reality is that the price of beef for the finished animal has to rise in order to deliver a profit for the beef farmers that will continue in business. I’m quite sure that many beef farmers are asking themselves serious questions about their future in the business.

Why is it taking so long (19 years since the first beef blockade) to have transparency on beef figures? We can put our hand on every figure possible on our farm.

We can calculate backwards and forwards. We are enabled by our co-op Dairygold, Teagasc, ICBF, ifac and our own figures and they are easily cross checked with what’s happening on the bank balance.

Price transparency needed

Now, my problem is with the figures that Pearse Kelly of Teagasc has put out on the value of the bull calves and it is this; he started with a profit of €200 for the beef animal which hasn’t been a reality for a very long time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it shouldn’t be there. But the idea of working the figures backwards is grand as an exercise, but to my mind it is quite irresponsible to write down that a Friesian bull calf should come with a price tag of -€128 or that an Angus cross bull calf is only worth €2!

Yes, we continue to use crossbred jersey semen on our heifers because they are easy calving, trouble free and get the heifer off to a brilliant start for her milking life. That is what our business is about.

We are also realists and know that the male calves are not going to gain the good prices they did in the past

We have used Friesian and Angus across the rest of the herd and we are continuing to reduce the use of Jersey.

We are also realists and know that the male calves are not going to gain the good prices they did in the past. I contend that it is downright irresponsible to work the figures backwards to talk down the price of calves.

Calf rearing is very often done by the women and children on dairy farms. It is a huge part of the ethos we portray to the market both for Irish beef and dairy produce from the family farm.

There must be a realistic value on the bull calf first then the figures are done upwards. Who gains from putting negative values on bull calves. It is the calf dealer or exporter.

We saw the price of calves talked down last year and then it collapsed. It is the same problem for the beef man. Lack of transparency on value and price inside the exporters trailers and the factory gates. They wouldn’t be at it if they weren’t making money.