HERD IMMUNITY: Prices remain a major worry for farmers

Our farming columnist Sean Deere with the latest on the 'graipevine'...

Our farming columnist Sean Deere with the latest on the 'graipevine'...

If there’s one certainty in farming, it’s uncertainty. I suppose we could say that about the current strange times in general but it’s very true In the farming world.

Top of the list of uncertainties is our old friend - often mentioned in hushed tones where men in wellingtons gather - the weather. But following in a close second is probably a bigger problem in reality: the price we receive for our product.

Now, I know full well that the non-farming fraternity will, about now, starting rolling their eyes and groaning. “Here we go, farmers crying about money again”… I get it. But stick with me here.

Remember for a second that the milk you put on your cornflakes, that juicy steak you treat yourself to on weekends and the baby powder which feeds the most important person in your house was all grown and produced in this country. No imported untraceable produce required!

That’s all very laudable but unfortunately it is those who produce these products who are losing out. As the Coronavirus emergency continues, no sector is immune but in ours, we have seen beef prices free-fall to eye-watering lows. The sad reality is that producing beef is currently a loss-making enterprise.

Lately, I have heard on the graipevine (that’s not a typo – a graipe, for you Philistines, is sort of like a four-pronged pitchfork) tales of mince flying off the shelves but prime cuts - which are the real money-making end of the carcass - being stockpiled.

Needless to say, this is a worrying development. We are all suffering in this pandemic but reports of mince beef being imported into Ireland from eastern Europe just adds to the feeling among many farmers that the factories view them with disdain.

I have heard of a few local farmers with stock fit for slaughter but have been told they won’t kill them at this stage for varied reasons. That is bad news for farmers in many and varied ways.

First of all, I should explain that live beef cattle have what is effectively a best before date.

To receive your animal’s true value, you need to meet certain criteria. Carcass confirmation and fat cover are two of such criteria but the most important is the fact that when an animal crosses 30 months of age, they are deemed “out of spec” so lose most of their bonus payments. In effect, this means it probably losses anything up to €300 off its value.

Over size/weight carcasses also incur a penalty (for the record, a carcass over 420kg is deemed overweight). At best, in my opinion, it is bureaucracy gone mad. At worst, something more sinister could be at play.

Look at it this way. We are slap bang in the middle of a global crisis where everyone is suffering health-wise and financially yet our beef barons, rather than cutting the red tape and pushing these out of spec/overweight carcasses - which are perfect in every way except the don’t meet the dreaded criteria - import meat from other countries while Irish beef farmers continue to struggle.

You couldn’t make it up. Surely, then, it must be time for farmers to really kick up a stink? Well, not exactly.

We all saw the farmers protest on the news last autumn but whether or not those protests delivered any tangible results for beef farmers is questionable. Cards on the table time, I didn’t agree with these protests at the factory gates and I’ll tell you why.

As I explained earlier, the 30-month rule effectively ties the farmer down to a date when his stock must be slaughtered. The vast majority of calves born in this country are born in March and April; as a result, most reach their 30th months in September and October.

This system works well as cattle can be sold or slaughtered in these months before the winter is upon us meaning they do not have to be rehoused. But these poorly-timed protests stopped genuine farmers getting their stock slaughtered which, far from aiding our cause, actually cost us on all fronts.

A brief examination of the consequences of those protests taking place when they did is interesting. Stock which ran over 30 months was now out of spec, as was stock which became overweight.

The extra time on farm meant they ate a huge amount of extra feed which all costs money and then the backlog of stock when it did reopen meant thousands of animals were not slaughtered for months.

This had another knock-on effect: factory-fit cattle were clogging up sheds meaning they could not be replaced with weanlings from the suckler farmers

The people who thought off this ingenious plan, who positioned themselves as fearless champions of the small farmer, actually ended up costing Irish farmers millions and probably put those millions into the factory owners’ pockets as they still got all the stock but at cut price deals.

While I am on a rant, there is also talk off a 20% drop in milk price. Now, this would be catastrophic for a lot of new entrants who got into milk production after the abolition of milk quotas five years ago.

Why is this happening? Well, it’s pretty much down to the dropped demand due to Coronavirus. The beef and dairy markets are highly volatile at the best of times.

It can only take one large chain, such as a fast food restaurant, to alter the make-up of its menus for the shockwaves to reverberate right down to the small farmer in rural Ireland.

Here’s an example: a few years back, one such company decided to switch from two slices of cheese in their burger to one. The result? A global crash in the price of cheese.

As I said, uncertainty is the only certainty in this game. And as the lockdown continues worldwide, we are in for a choppy ride price-wise.

Then again, there’s nothing new there.