‘Dairy farmers are driving up price of land — not me’

Gigginstown farmer and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary talks about his upcoming sale of stock and why it’s vital for Irish agriculture to maintain a mix of dairy and ‘premium product’ beef

Michael O’Leary has no plans in becoming “some sort of industrialised farmer” with 10,000 acres. Ahead of his annual Gigginstown sale, he says he’s happy with the 2,000 acres he owns in Westmeath.

“Do I want to own 10,000 acres, no,” he says. “I’m not interested in becoming some sort of industrialised farmer, but if land becomes available beside me or reasonably close to me in Mullingar, certainly I would continue to add.

“But I’m not out there actively looking for land, nor am I driving up the price of land in Co Westmeath. The dairy farmers are out there doing that all on their own.

“The returns on leasing land are infinitely small. You’d be better off buying houses in Ranelagh and getting a higher return for your investment.”

Invest in Ryanair shares, he says!

But it’s those dairy farmers, he says, who have been prominent buyers of his angus cattle over the years at his farm’s annual sale,

‘Yes, our beef farm is profitable. But would it generate enough money to go out and buy land at €14,000-€15,000/ac? No’

where the top price for a bull last year was €7,600 and heifers made an average of €4,600.

“The advantage we have in Gigginstown is that our bulls come with a high dairy beef index and it’s a growing trend now with dairy farmers increasingly looking at the dairy beef index.

“The dairy guys are the guys with all the money in recent years. They’ve been certainly driving forward the price of the bulls.” On the heifer side, he says, they’ve seen some sales to other breeders, with Gigginstown stock now appearing in and winning shows, and topping out sales through other people’s herds.

And while beef farming has, for most farmers, not returned much profit in recent years, O’Leary says his operation is profitable.

“It depends on how you define profit,” he says. “If I don’t have to factor in the cost of the sheds and the land, then yes, it’s a profitable exercise.

“But will the beef sales fund land acquisition prices or putting up extravagant sheds for cattle? No, they won’t.

“So profitability is relative. But certainly, it’s a much more profitable enterprise than your average commercial farmer going out and buying stock in March or April to graze the land and selling them all in October.

“We have an end-to-end farm enterprise. We’re sending upwards of 300 cattle every year now and our inputs are really just feed, most of which is grown ourselves.

“So it’s a pretty circular enterprise because we have a pretty large tillage operation attached to it. And we have scale.

“Yes, it’s profitable. But would it generate enough money to go out and buy land at €14,000-€15,000/ac? No.”

O’Leary’s beef herd, on just over 2,000 acres in Westmeath, is made up of 800 cattle, of which 600 are pedigree.

This year’s Gigginstown sale will feature 25 bulls (23 black, and two red angus bulls) and 20 of the “best breeding females available to Gigginstown”, according to O’Leary.

“These pedigree females will be a mix of young cows with calves at foot, heifers on the point of calving, and also younger heifers ready for breeding.”

O’Leary will attend the sale himself on Saturday, April 20, happy to take “Snapchat selfies” and welcoming people to the sale, “particularly those people arriving with cattle trailers on the back”.

Despite the lack of profitability for most beef farmers, he says it’s important to encourage everyone and vital for the future of Irish agriculture that the sector is not entirely dependent on dairy. “We need to have a mix of dairy and beef. Irish beef exports are rising.

“It’s still a premium product. I generally would be concerned though, that a lot of the regulation is driving up the cost of food and that’s a threat for both consumers and farmers going forward.

“But Irish farming continues to represent the sector that produces very high quality food at reasonable prices. What we need is less silly green regulations from idiotic green ministers who haven’t a clue what’s going on in farming.”