Strength in numbers for Longford sheep farmers

It’s not just about collective bargaining power — the social dimension of the thriving Longford Lamb Producer Group is equally important to its members, reports

IT’S 8pm on a fine summer’s evening in the heart of the midlands. Up to 100 sheep farmers from Longford and Westmeath are gathered around three pens of ewes and lambs in a shed on the 140 acre farm of Willie and Ann Fox in Tang, located on the road between Athlone and Ballymahon.

The farmers, mostly lowland sheep producers specialising in Texel cross, Belclare cross and Suffolk cross, are a diverse bunch.

Some are of older traditional stock and some are more modern innovators. There is the next generation working in partnership with parents, parttime farmers, bachelor farmers that usually keep to themselves and busy youngsters hoping to one day take over the family business.

Despite their varying views on how to get the best from their flocks, the Longford Lamb Producer Group are out in force to hear the latest on optimum condition scoring, farm safety and farm insurance from a panel of agri experts.

Every year the group takes on a couple of initiatives. This year it is farm safety, last year they looked at quality assurance and for next year they are considering tackling mental health issues for elderly farmers.

Many have been members since the foundation of the group nearly 20 years ago when six local farmers came together to promote the sale of their own lamb by amalgamating selling power.

But over the last two years, membership has mushroomed by almost 50pc, with numbers now skimming the 100 mark.

The group’s ability to negotiate better lamb prices, wool sales, vaccination and dosing costs, plus the convenience and reassurance of working with a dedicated haulier twice weekly at Ballymahon Mart have all been central to growth but chairman Joe Esler, says the social side has also become a major magnet.

“It gives us more welly as a better price can be negotiated with the factory, than that ob- tained by an individual. The bargaining power of groups with 300-400 lambs per week is much greater than farmers with 30 lambs per week.

“The factory is guaranteed a weekly supply of lambs and the group is guaranteed that our lambs will be slaughtered on the day arranged,” he said.

“But the social side is huge. The poor man’s university is what a lot of it is. There are some farmers who tend to stay in their own corner, they can’t communicate terribly well and would struggle to strike up a conversation with a stranger in a pub on a Saturday night.

“At open evenings like this if some fella starts talking to them about the price of sheep, this fat ewe and that fat ewe, all of a sudden he is on a roll and they are absolutely thrilled with themselves,” he said.

Joe’s analysis plays out in spades as Teagasc advisor Ciaran Lynch and Ronan Collins Kepak Lamb Procurement Manager invite farmers forward to handle the ewes and lambs.

“We have some ewes here in great order, we have some that need a wee bit more attention so if you want to come up and have a quick look,” said Ciaran during his demonstration on condition scoring.

“When you put your hand along that backbone you don’t want to be able to find the different ridges in it, you want it to be nice and smooth along it, you want a nice cover of fat under the ribs, that’s the way you want them going into the ram,” he said.

Meanwhile a box of lollipops and sweets were circulated ringside.

Farmer Willie Fox who keeps around 400 ewes and mostly lambs two lots between February, March and April, says he initially joined for convenience reasons 15 years ago.

“I was finding it difficult to sell lambs on my own, it was difficult to deal with the factory, difficult to get the lambs going when you wanted to. Now I can just book in lambs on a Saturday evening and they go every Monday and that’s it, it’s ease of management.

Margins

“Financially it’s more beneficial, there is a small margin. All groups around the country stand to gain over and above what a farmer would get on his own, when all bonuses and haulages are counted but it is negotiated and it differs between every group,” he said.

Lambs belonging to the members of the group are loaded each week on Monday evening at 5.30pm and Tuesday mornings at 6.30am at Ballymahon Mart and brought to the factory by haulier Pat Campbell. A farmer representative from the group is present in the factory on the morning of the lambs being slaughtered, to oversee the entire operation.

The cost of haulage to individual members is significantly reduced, allowing farmers to send a small number of lambs on a weekly basis.

At this time of year the group is selling around 500 lambs a week, but that figure is expected to drop to 350-400 lambs as summer comes to a close.

He says the social outlet of the group, which also hosts tours and an annual ram draw, has brought big benefits to the local farming community who mostly live within a five mile radius of Ballymahon.

“These occasions play a key role in preventing and reducing rural isolation and promote farmer integration. Afterwards they’ll go down to the Three Jolly Pigeons pub for tea and sandwiches and they will start talking about sheep and dosing and somebody will have a sheep with a lame foot. It gives fellas a forum to exchange views, discuss best practice but most of all it brings them out of themselves,” he said.

Chairman Joe Esler says the group, which currently has two ladies on the committee, is eager to get more farming women involved.

“The majority of women now are in partnership with their husband and they like to know what is going on and have a keen interest. Women bring a different point of view than the old fashioned male dominance of everything. Agricultural women have their finger on the pulse and we are proactive in encouraging more women to sign up,” he said.