AVAILABLE ONLY THROUGH @farmersmonthly /irishfarmersmonthly www.irishfarmersmonthly.com OCTOBER 2020 Navigating change: Bord Bia’s strategic approach to the challenges of 2020 A HARVEST TO FORGET: BOBBY MILLER DISCUSSES WINTER FINISHING PROSPECTS: DES THE STRAIN ON IRELAND’S GRAIN PRODUCERS AND MORRISON TALKS CATTLE PRICES, THE CALLS FOR IRISH GRAIN TO BE USED EXCLUSIVELY IMPORTANCE OF THE SUCKLER HERD AND THE IN IRISH WHISKEY PRODUCTION. ICMSA’S ATTITUDE TO THE PROPOSED BEEF PGI. SILAGE FEEDER & OCTOBER 2020 STRAW BLOWER CALL TODAY www.irishfarmersmonthly.com Contents RANGE Finance* & Special Offers Available Up to 40%** Straw Savings * Offer Available in Ireland Only. Terms and Conditions Apply. For Full Details Contact McHale. Designed to Blow Straw & Feed Wet Silage & Haylage AS STANDARD AS STANDARD AS STANDARD + Self Loading Tailgate + Joystick Chute Control Twin Speed Gearbox + for Different Crops + External Loading Controls 56 Blade Feed Rotor 300 Degree Independent Control Console + Swivel Chute Rotor with Joystick Chute Control CALL TODAY Irish Sales Rep.- James Heanue- 087 247 2399 Superior Forage Solutions **Based On User Experience www.mchale.net SILAGE FEEDER & OCTOBER 2020 STRAW BLOWER CALL TODAY www.irishfarmersmonthly.com Contents RANGE Finance* Editorial AVAILABLE ONLY THROUGH Convergence robs Peter to pay Paul @farmersmonthly & Special /irishfarmersmonthly www.irishfarmersmonthly.com OCTOBER 2020 Offers It is dicult to reconcile the confidence being displayed by purchasers of cattle in livestock marts Available with the uncertainties surrounding the sector. Unless unforeseeable and extremely fortuitous circumstances Navigating change: Bord Bia’s strategic approach to deliver unexpectedly high beef prices next spring, it is the challenges of 2020 A HARVEST TO FORGET: BOBBY MILLER DISCUSSES WINTER FINISHING PROSPECTS: DES hard to see how a reasonable profit can be made from THE STRAIN ON IRELAND’S GRAIN PRODUCERS AND MORRISON TALKS CATTLE PRICES, THE CALLS FOR IRISH GRAIN TO BE USED EXCLUSIVELY IMPORTANCE OF THE SUCKLER HERD AND THE finishing cattle this winter. If even the mildest prospects IN IRISH WHISKEY PRODUCTION. ICMSA’S ATTITUDE TO THE PROPOSED BEEF PGI. for Brexit and Covid turn into realities then the sums 4 Upfront do not add up. That is a dismal prediction for everyone involved. It would be easier to blandly declare that €4.50 per kilo is needed to make a profit 8 Business from winter finishing and let people make up their own minds and sums as to whether they can profitably invest in filling sheds in the weeks ahead. 12 Interview: Even if a basic trade deal is cobbled together between the EU and the UK Tara McCarthy, Bord Bia CEO in the weeks ahead, it is unlikely to herald a golden age or price for beef next spring. Right now, and we can only hope for a reprieve, there is every 15 Interview: indication that, over the winter months, Covid will continue to impact Colm Markey, MEP negatively on the demand for beef in food service outlets especially. As Up to farmers, many of us build misguided confidence on silver bullets. This time 18 Feature: ICMSA on there may be a belief that a Covid vaccine is imminent. It could well be the winter finished prospects case. However, there is no possibility that any vaccination programme will restore global ‘normality’ in the next six months. Even if viable vaccines 20 Feature: A harvest to forget 40%** were available right now the logistics of inoculating billions of people 24 Education: UCD release Straw Savings worldwide mean that many months would be needed to provide sucient results from Covid-19 Food population protection to allow us to return to societal norms, including eating out regularly and being able to aord to do so as national debts rise Survey and individual employment circumstances remain precarious. * Offer Available in Ireland Only. There are contra entries to be made in beef accounting. Finishers find it 45 Management Hints Terms and Conditions Apply. For Full Details Contact McHale. dicult to make a margin, while the store and weanling producers are not 52 Machinery making profits either. The days when a twenty-cow suckler farmer could make a living for his or her family are long gone. No matter what the price 66 Farm Safety of a suckler weanling, there can be no aspiration for an average industrial wage for the average suckler farmer. That suggests the only viable solution 68 Rural Life Designed to Blow Straw & is a far higher beef price, which is not a realistic prospect, at least not in the medium term. Without the Basic Payment Scheme and other financial 70 Very End supports, most cattle farms, of whatever type or size, would be hopelessly loss-making. If the current EU aim of fully converging the BPS across the Feed Wet Silage & Haylage Union in the next CAP iteration goes ahead, the situation will become even more problematic. There is no political will to bring payments up, Animal Health Focus only to rob Peter to pay Paul. For Irish cattle farmers, especially, that is a frightening prospect. The financial facts are daunting. Ask any beef finisher 26 Prevention is better than cure presenting a business plan to their bank manager to facilitate a stocking 28 Planning ahead for antimicrobial AS STANDARD Self Loading Tailgate loan. It is a dicult exercise to convince an objective number cruncher that AS STANDARD AS STANDARD + restrictions the business case is sound. Many finishers are delaying purchasing cattle. Joystick Chute Control The big force factor pushing them towards buying in cattle at all is the fear 31 Tips for an effective cattle + of a tax penalty for destocking. worming strategy Twin Speed Gearbox Retail beef prices do not reflect the costs of production and as long as 36 Leptospirosis and the health of + for Different Crops there are ample supplies of cattle coming o Irish farms there will be little your farm change either in the price to the primary producer or the proportion of the + External Loading Controls consumer price which is passed back to that primary producer. 40 Pre calving mineral requirements 56 Blade Feed Rotor 300 Degree Independent Control Console + Editor: Matt O’Keee Editorial Director: Miriam Atkins Tillage Editor: Jim O’Mahony Swivel Chute Rotor with Joystick Chute Control Machinery: Noel Dunne Motoring: Bernard Potter Journalist: Bernie Commins Design: Niall O’Brien Production: Ciaran Brougham Martin Whelan Barry Sheehan Advertising Manager: John Sheehan Commercial and Advertising Manager: Anna Douglas Accounts: Tricia Murtagh Administration & Subscriptions: Sue Nolan Chief Executive: Rebecca Markey Printing: W&G Baird Publishers: IFP Media Subscription: €40 per annum CALL TODAY Irish Farmers Monthly, Castlecourt, Glenageary, Co. Dublin. Irish Sales Rep.- James Heanue- 087 247 2399 Tel: +353 1 7096900 • e-mail: [email protected] • www.irishfarmersmonthly.com Copyright IFP Media 2020. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form without the express written permission of the publishers. Superior Forage Solutions **Based On User Experience www.mchale.net OCTOBER 2020 OCTOBER 2020 Upfront www.irishfarmersmonthly.com www.irishfarmersmonthly.com Category Milk price differentials Picking a particular point in time to make milk pricing comparisons can result in skewed outcomes. The ICMSA Dairy Chairman Ger Quain makes that very point in highlighting the dierential in milk prices paid to milk producers in recent months. There is the potential for some Coops to make up the dierence by paying higher prices at other times of the year. Nevertheless, Ger’s comparison is stark. By his estimates, the average dairy herd (now touching 100 cows) financial return for milk produced in August would be €1,250 higher if supplied to the highest paying milk processor compared to the lowest paying processor. The ICMSA representative also made the argument that bonuses – in whatever form – should be just that: a bonus on top of the best possible price. Some Coops have alternative sources of income, other than the returns from manufacturing dairy products. Glanbia, for instance, has an income stream from its shareholding in Glanbia Plc. The Coop puts this to good use by providing support payments to its dairy farmer members through milk price bonuses. Ger Quain’s argument, presumably, is that this payment is not and should not be an integral part of the milk price. Not that Glanbia Coop has ever argued otherwise. Billy gives Commission both barrels Billy Kelleher, MEP, has blasted the European Commission’s proposal Why are Centra, SuperValu to ban lead shot use in designated wetlands. The proposal is based on a and Tesco so big on locally belief that some of the lead shot can Devenish chickens deliver be ingested by birds and other wildlife sourced and packaged milk with possible poisonous eects. The health benefits Ireland South MEP’s objection, which he has lodged as a member of the We previously highlighted the research carried out by Devenish into with the NDC trademark? Parliament’s Committee on Environment, the human health benefits of omega-3-rich chicken and eggs. There Climate Action and Public Health, is is a growing body of evidence from trials that the benefits are real and based on two main arguments. The substantial, most especially in providing protection from heart attacks, first is that Irish shotgun owners will be strokes, dementia and depression. Hypertension is recognised as a major It’s a question of commitment. disproportionately aected, given the factor in heart disease. The addition of omega-3 to chicken feed has been high area of wetlands in the country. The proven to transfer into the meat and eggs consumed by humans. The fact second point he makes is that the lead that the omega-3 additive, called Omegapro, used in the feed is sourced ban proposal places an unfair and high from algae is an added bonus, as there is no reliance on a fish source which With the NDC trademark – proof of locally sourced milk from farm to fridge – cost on gun owners as the alternative would be less sustainable.