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It would appear that the Department of Agriculture are Elvis fans. The King of Rock ’n Roll released an album back in the day entitled 50 Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong.
The Department’s take on this seems to be 50 Million Announcements of a €50m Scheme Can’t Be Wrong.
In fairness, it has to be remembered that announcements of the Beef Finishers Payment (COVID-19) scheme have been shared between three ministers.
Perhaps there is a protocol that the clock is zeroed when the minister changes, so we should only be counting those announcements of the scheme made by Dara Calleary. If so, there’s road for many more announcements.
Just when it looked like the UK would conclude its first major post-Brexit trade deal with Japan last week, it crumbled as the UK attempted to have its famous Stilton blue cheese included.
The ambition was to secure something that the EU didn’t have in its trade deal with Japan and was largely symbolic, as Japan doesn’t feature in the UK’s top 10 destinations outside the EU for dairy exports. The UK had hoped to roll over the terms of the EU deal when it leaves the transition at the end of the year, but Japan insisted on a separate negotiation.
Raymond Potterton gave a virtuoso display this wee, conducting the auction of the year - the 1,090ac Ballinla Farm.
The tillage soils are 6ft deep, he said when warming up the crowd, the concrete in the big farmyard is industrial specification and the commercial forestry properly managed.
“When you buy Ballinla, you won’t need to call in the drainage contractor, or any other contractor. Nothing, but nothing, needs to be done.”
Some farmers bid gamely for the opening lots, blocks of 78ac, 74ac and 61ac. But tellingly, there were no bids for lot four, 877ac with houses and farmyard. The big guns were holding their powder dry for the final round – the entire farm. Sure enough, the auction took off. Raymond Potterton accepted an opening bid of €8m, which moved to €8.5m, then €9m, then in quarter million jumps to €10.6m.
After that, he had to work harder, digging out €100,000 bids. “I heard the cough but I didn’t hear the money,” he told one bidder, like everyone else, masked. “You never chickened out before,” he told another.
He got two more bids of €100,000 each and then – happily – took €200,000 to reach €11m. “It takes the Dunnes Stores look out of it, doesn’t it?” he said.
The auctioneers conferred outside with the Tong family, who had sat in the front row. Potterton returned and declared the farm on the market and going to sell. He warned the audience that this was the opportunity of a lifetime and that the price was “surprisingly low”. He gave everyone a chance to go again – but there was no more money left in the room. He waved once, twice, three times, bang - sold for a cool €11m.
Who is the buyer?
Prior to auction, this huge farm garnered a lot of interest in the farming world.
Not since the Castle Annaghs sale in 2009 has there been as much talk about a block of land among dairy farmers. That time, west Cork native Liam Shiely bought the 550ac parcel with 10,000 square foot Georgian house on the Kilkenny/Wexford border for €6.075m. It was subsequently converted to a dairy farm and Liam and his family continue to milk cows at there.
The Dealer wonders what will happen in Ballinla?
Rumours
Rumours are rife that a north Tipp agribusiness man secured the land block as part of a syndicate with local farmers, with a view to setting up a dairy farm.
Both Castle Annaghs and Ballinla were better value than the €17.2 m paid for 275ac Pass House at Cullenagh near Portlaoise, at the height of the property bubble in 2006.
A meeting last week brought The Dealer right back down to earth, with Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice uttering a phrase which made me smile.
Commenting on the rewetting of bogs, the Roscommon-Galway TD said that peat was a fancy word for bogs.
“One time ago, if you looked at the hills in Mayo where there’d be plenty of bog as we call it, or peat is the fancy word for it now,” he said. Well, The Dealer couldn’t agree more.
What is it in your neck of the woods? A bog or peatland? Answers on a postcard please.
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