Why should the government do anything about the fodder crisis?

[T McGibney]

I would suggest that the current system very much does NOT penalise damaging farming practices. And the lobbyists/industry want that to continue. Remember when the Citizens Assembly recommended that there be a carbon tax on environmentally damaging farm practices last year (which would stay within farming and go to those that do the opposite)? The IFA were against that without exploring the issue. Industry groups and their political bedfellows consistently come out against any real reform or change in farming.

The Citizens Assembly hardly counts as an authoritative source here. Look up the detail of the main schemes. They are peppered with environmental conditions. Farmers who fail to comply are punished severely.

 

[Early Riser]

If we traded openly with the rest of the world our food prices would be close to what they are now, hundred of millions of people would be lifted out of poverty and starvation and there would be no need for the massive grants and subsidies

This may be so provided we significantly changed our dietary habits away from meat and chicken - No? Otherwise the biggest beneficiaries would probably be the US, Argentina and Brazil. There is, of course a strong argument that we should change diet - and probably will have to over the following decades.

And, if we don't change from meat and chicken, is there a broad acceptance from the consumer for lower standards? Even as regards GM foods there seems to be considerable resistance despite the scientific evidence of safety.

The other argument for subsidies (and the original one) though is in terms of maintaining food sufficiency in the EU. This is ideological rather than economic.

 

[Purple]

Good point. But scrap the food subsidies completely. Make us pay the proper price for food.

Brendan

Scrap the trade barriers and we'd be paying the same as we are now or less.
The subsidies come from taxes so in reality we are paying the full price, just not in the supermarket.

 

[Purple]

This may be so provided we significantly changed our dietary habits away from meat and chicken - No?

Not necessarily, there are plenty of countries which can produce chicken and beef.
Why is importing garlic from china without paying the correct duty regarded as being as serious a pedophilia?

 

[galway_blow_in]

I have heard the IFA complaining that the government has done nothing about the fodder crisis.

But could someone explain why the government should do anything?

The farmers knew in advance that it was coming when they got the very wet weather. Surely it was up to them then to prepare for it either by destocking or buying in fodder in anticipation of the shortage. Or was their attitude "The government will rescue us."?

Brendan

i grew up on a farm , my brother is a dairy farmer in the east , i myself own some land which i have let out long term

the government absolutely should not do anything !

1 . the crisis is very regional , there is not a crisis in the east and in much of the south , its primarily in the north west and especially in donegal , there was a genuine crisis in the spring of 2013 as not only did the winter last into early may , the previous summer was the wettest on record so farmers anywhere never got a break , it was countrywide , feed was imported from as far away as france

2. cattle prices are quite strong at the moment which was not the case in 2013 , any farmer who is facing a looming feed shortage need only load up animals in the trailer and head to the local mart , he should be pretty well paid right now

3. in the areas where feed shortage is a problem , this has happened many times before and will most certainly happen again , its overwhelmingly due to weather and the weather is simply much wetter in the west and north west , add to that the land is of much poorer quality in these areas too , much of this area of the country would be better planted in forrestry and forrestry is more profitable than beef anyway

 

[TheBigShort]

Scrap the trade barriers and we'd be paying the same as we are now or less.
The subsidies come from taxes so in reality we are paying the full price, just not in the supermarket.

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't get how scrapping subsidies would do anything but put prices up? As stated earlier by another poster, the 'profit' some farmers get for their produce is not sustainable.
I understand the point that if that reduced taxes via stopping subsidies would offset price increases in the supermarket, but by opening our food supplies to the 'free market' we would risk increased price fluctuations on an increased basis. This is good when food is cheap, but bad when prices go too high - the current unrest in Iran has been attributed to high food prices by some commentators.

The system we have now at least secures food price stability.

 

[Early Riser]

Why is importing garlic from china without paying the correct duty regarded as being as serious a pedophilia?

I think you are referring to the sentence of a man for the evasion of €1.6 million in tax on garlic imports. I do think the level of duty on garlic seems ridiculous and it is (I understand) totally out of synch with other import duties (agricultural included). The comparison with pedophilia is just ridiculous.

 

[Woodsman]

It is a few hours since I last posted and since then a large number of queries have come in. I will try and briefly reply to some. Firstly, I have many years of experience in livestock production, tillage and forestry. I also expanded in to other activities as farming alone was not sufficient to provide a comfortable living. Farming provided a far better income in years gone by before subsidies arrived.Currently Irish farmers are producing and selling food at cost or a little below that. They only survive because of the Single Farm Payment. This is in reality a subsidy to the consumer who benefits from purchasing food at a historically low price. Is this a good thing? I cannot answer that but maybe it is one reason for the rise in obesity in developed countries. In the meantime, farmers in poorer regions who do not receive subsidies, cannot compete on a world market.
Regarding forestry, it is a complex issue but the Teagasc website gives a good overview of the returns. To date, forestry has returned in the region of 8% pa for the past two decades. A farmer who decides to cease farming conventionally can have his land planted and fenced and maintained under the afforestation scheme and look forward to a (almost) tax free return of app €8k per acre after app 35 years. Ideal for a pension. In the meantime he receives a tax free annual premium for 15 years to reach the first thinning stage when an income flow begins. Land was available for planting in the mid 1990s for €800/€1000 per acre. Similar land, if it can be found is now making app €5k per acre. Given the returns available, I cannot understand why farmers with marginal land who are struggliing to survive will not plant at least some of their holdings. Many have done so and have profited from it but there is still an underlying prejudice against forestry which makes no economic sense.

 

[galway_blow_in]

There is no fodder crisis in the east and south of Ireland. The problem is occurring however with increasing regularity, mostly in what are called the BMW (border, midland and western) regions.
Farmers in Sligo, Leitrim and Cavan are particularily hard hit due to incessant rain and a drumlin soil that has very poor drainage properties. It is difficult to understand why farmers in these areas persist in carrying on keeping livestock which is essentially an uneconomic activity. They are surviving almost solely on their Single Farm Payments from the EU. The interesting part of this debate is that the land these farmers own is considered the best in Europe for growing trees but, as was discussed on the RTE programme Ear to the Ground recently, there is a local perception that a farmer who gives up a life of hardship with little economic return and plants trees on his land is in some way considered a failure, despite the fact that he would be earning far more from forestry and would have time to both manage his woods and if he/she wished, take on an off farm job. Forestry is a very emotive subject in Leitrim despite the clear evidence that it brings huge benefits to the individual farmers and the community at large in terms of increased employment and the production of timber for both construction and fuel, most of which we currently import

large swathes of the west and north west will be planted in trees in the next few decades , its a certainty , the only focus of the powers that be going forward is with regard expanding the dairy industry , its far and away the most profitable agri sector but the problem is with dairy expansion comes the challenge of meeting the countries carbon targets , happily this can be met by expanding the forestry sector in tandem with the dairy sector , the beef sector will be sacraficed in order for the dairy sector to grow , its already been decided , what will happen in the coming years is a stick rather than carrot approach will be used to coax beef farmers into planting their land , most likely subsidies will be reduced unless land is planted , up to now the direct payments to beef farmers were enough for them to be able to avoid having to plant but the reality is europe can source its beef from many parts of the world and the powers that be now actively want irelands beef industry slimed down

beef will still be produced here but most of it will come from dairy cows as happens in new zealand

 

[Early Riser]

Many have done so and have profited from it but there is still an underlying prejudice against forestry which makes no economic sense

I can clearly see from your summary that it makes economic sense for the individual farmer. But is this the main source of objection in, say, Leitrim?

 

[galway_blow_in]

Farming is not an economic activity. It is a mechanism to harvest grants from the EU.

true but the subsidies also allow the larry goodmans of this world to pay as little as possible for beef , he has more influence on the irish government envoy to europe when it comes to agricultural subsidies than hundreds of thousand of beef farmers combined

 

[odyssey06]

Grants don't just subsidise farmers, it subsidises the food that you buy in the supermarkets. The prices that farmers now get for animals/milk is not sustainable. a litre of milk in a supermarket is not much more than it was 20 years ago.

How has the price of milk been kept steady by grants and subsidies?
Were they not being subsidised 20 years ago, or have they increased to match inflation?
Are Irish subsidies higher than French ones, or are they common to EU - I noticed that milk prices in France were higher than Ireland, for example.

Any idea what the price of a litre would be without them - to keep it simple, we assume it's Irish milk and suppliers haven't switched to cheaper sources in the brave new subsidy-free world?

 

[Purple]

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't get how scrapping subsidies would do anything but put prices up? As stated earlier by another poster, the 'profit' some farmers get for their produce is not sustainable.

If we were in an open market globally then prices would drop significantly as we would be able to buy food produced in low cost countries without the large duties we impose.

 

[Purple]

I think you are referring to the sentence of a man for the evasion of €1.6 million in tax on garlic imports. I do think the level of duty on garlic seems ridiculous and it is (I understand) totally out of synch with other import duties (agricultural included). The comparison with pedophilia is just ridiculous.

The same week as he got a 6 year prison sentence a pedophile got a lower sentence. It was in d'papers at the time.

 

[galway_blow_in]

Grants don't just subsidise farmers, it subsidises the food that you buy in the supermarkets. The prices that farmers now get for animals/milk is not sustainable. a litre of milk in a supermarket is not much more than it was 20 years ago. Farmers would gladly forgo their grants if they could get a sustainable price for their goods, but the big meat companies and supermarkets are keeping this artificially low. Someone close to me is a large and efficient farmer. He would not even break even if he did not have grants.

thats the IFA line

the reason farmers cant make a living producing beef in ireland is because beef operations are far too small , without subsidies the best farmers who produce beef can make in or around 150 euro per cow ( a cow produces a calf per year and it takes minimum sixteen months to bring to slaughter and in most cases over two years )

the problem is the average beef cow herd is less than twenty so the average suckler ( suckler = beef cow ) farmer makes no more than three thousand euro per year from his farm without subsidies , had the average farmer two hundred suckler cows as is the case in most countries in europe , let alone canada , australia or new zealand , he could make 30 k without subsidies

subsidies to farmers are what prevents small inneficient farmers from having to sell up , its what keeps a floor under land prices which are the highest in europe in ireland , if you remove subsidies , the price of meat for consumers wont rise a cent but a flood of farmers will exits the industry and with it a flood of land will come on the market , allowing sufficiently large farmers to buy land cheaper and expand to a sufficient level of scale

its adding two and two and coming up with five to assume that if subsidies went , the consumer would automatically have to pay more for beef , its a flawed theory borne of entitlement on the part of farmers where they simply assume they cannot be done without and must be supported in some shape or form

 

[galway_blow_in]

Excuse my ignorance, but I don't get how scrapping subsidies would do anything but put prices up? As stated earlier by another poster, the 'profit' some farmers get for their produce is not sustainable.
I understand the point that if that reduced taxes via stopping subsidies would offset price increases in the supermarket, but by opening our food supplies to the 'free market' we would risk increased price fluctuations on an increased basis. This is good when food is cheap, but bad when prices go too high - the current unrest in Iran has been attributed to high food prices by some commentators.

The system we have now at least secures food price stability.

the CAP doesnt just revolve around paying subsidies to european farmers , its about keeping out cheap imports from other parts of the world , its protectionism on a truly enormous scale , the backbone of this racket is the rural french

 

[galway_blow_in]

It is a few hours since I last posted and since then a large number of queries have come in. I will try and briefly reply to some. Firstly, I have many years of experience in livestock production, tillage and forestry. I also expanded in to other activities as farming alone was not sufficient to provide a comfortable living. Farming provided a far better income in years gone by before subsidies arrived.Currently Irish farmers are producing and selling food at cost or a little below that. They only survive because of the Single Farm Payment. This is in reality a subsidy to the consumer who benefits from purchasing food at a historically low price. Is this a good thing? I cannot answer that but maybe it is one reason for the rise in obesity in developed countries. In the meantime, farmers in poorer regions who do not receive subsidies, cannot compete on a world market.
Regarding forestry, it is a complex issue but the Teagasc website gives a good overview of the returns. To date, forestry has returned in the region of 8% pa for the past two decades. A farmer who decides to cease farming conventionally can have his land planted and fenced and maintained under the afforestation scheme and look forward to a (almost) tax free return of app €8k per acre after app 35 years. Ideal for a pension. In the meantime he receives a tax free annual premium for 15 years to reach the first thinning stage when an income flow begins. Land was available for planting in the mid 1990s for €800/€1000 per acre. Similar land, if it can be found is now making app €5k per acre. Given the returns available, I cannot understand why farmers with marginal land who are struggliing to survive will not plant at least some of their holdings. Many have done so and have profited from it but there is still an underlying prejudice against forestry which makes no economic sense.

the only valid reason for not planning is that you may be at the mercy of a very small number of buyers once the forest matures in thirty years plus , add to that were someone in brussels to decide one day that subsidies for trees were twice too high , where would someone be who was ten years into a plant ? , i know the same could happen with subsidies for cattle farmers but at least they can sell their land , land once planted immedietely falls sharply in value

that the planter has to be bribed with a tax free premia is itself cause for scepticism

 

[Purple]

the CAP doesnt just revolve around paying subsidies to european farmers , its about keeping out cheap imports from other parts of the world , its protectionism on a truly enormous scale , the backbone of this racket is the rural french

It also allows us to dump heavily subsidised food on developing countries. Back in the day when we produced sugar a bag of Irish Sugar was cheaper in South Africa than local cane sugar.

 

[Early Riser]

It was in d'papers at the time.

Indeed twas. And twas a silly tabloid point. The sentence (disproportionate as it was) was for tax evasion - the garlic was incidental. Fortunately it was subsequently reduced to two. How excessive or inadequate the sentences are for tax evasion is, I suggest, a separate topic. (And yes the duty on garlic does /did seem extraordinary.)

 

[galway_blow_in]

It also allows us to dump heavily subsidised food on developing countries. Back in the day when we produced sugar a bag of Irish Sugar was cheaper in South Africa than local cane sugar.

the CAP is one of the biggest obstacles to improved prosperity in the third world