Myths about suckler farming
skills that dairy farmers are belatedly realising they need to tap into.
There are already discussion groups in the west that have been set up to connect dairy farmers needing help to take the pressure off their inadequate facilities, fodder supplies and their daily routines so they don’t run themselves into the ground.
So there are alternatives out there.
And that’s before anyone mentions a word about forestry, which I still believe has untapped potential both east and west of the Shannon.
There’s no point ignoring the environmental angle either. It goes hand in hand with the profit problem in suckling.
In the same way that there’s very little economic output from a suckler cow while she’s pregnant (in contrast to the dairy cow that is paying her way through the milk she’s pumping out), there’s ver y little to justif y her emissions either.
By the way, this is not a piece looking for the end to beef farming in Ireland. While there are cows in Ireland, there’ll be beef in Ireland. But the most profitable beef is more likely to be a by-product from the dairy herd.
It’s a pity that there’s no leadership to prevent this becoming a dairy versus beef debate rather than a discussion on the best way to ensure a real economic return for the biggest number of farmers possible.
I can’t finish without pointing to the biggest f law in the concept of increasing the subsidisation of the beef sector. If suckler farmers are unable to make a living from the animals they produce, why aren’t the fabulously wealthy individuals who buy all the beef produced here able to pay any extra?
Instead, we are proposing to simply increase the taxpayers’ subsidisation of the beef barons’ multi-billion industry. And then we wonder why the economics of farming don’t stack up?
It’s time for farmers to take a leaf out of those former IFA leaders’ books.
Otherwise they’ll find themselves dependent on a quasi-welfare system that will be entirely subject to the whims of a political and business elite.
A GROWING NUMBER OF FORMER IFA PRESIDENTS AND BEEF CHAIRMEN HAVE SWITCHED TO MILKING COWS IN THE LAST FEW YEARS