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It feels like, at long last, the beef market is thinking about turning a corner. Some would say, that unless that corner is made up of 180°, it won’t make much difference, but there does seem to be a slight glimmer of positivity creeping in, compared with what we’ve been experiencing all summer and autumn.
With Irish beef prices on a par with the Brazilians, one would hope that we’ve bottomed out and up is the only way it can go. There is, of course, no guarantee of that. There is reportedly good demand for cattle, but Irish factories are as of yet resisting upward pressure, unlike our Northern Ireland counterparts.
There also appears to be increased demand in the marts for store cattle. Whether this is an indication of anything other than the Irish farmer being his/her usual optimistic self, remains to be seen.
If someone had asked me a couple of months ago, I probably would have told them, if a new BDGP scheme was rolled out after the existing one, and the applicant had to sign up again for five years, then I wouldn’t be signing up. Of course, there wouldn’t be much point continuing to keep suckler cows and not be in the scheme so, ultimately, I would probably end up getting rid of sucklers. Now, two or three months later I’m in the middle of calving and I’m seeing new calves on the ground, for the first year ever, almost all AI calves and good quality.
Although it’s not all plain-sailing, I’m feeling much more positive about the whole thing. Why is this? Nothing really has changed. I’m definitely not making any more money nor am I likely to, so why do I feel different? The only thing I can put that down to, are the peaks and troughs of life. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down. Some days you’re positive and some days you’re negative. I wonder how many other farmers feel the same as me.
Farmers are by nature an optimistic breed. We have to be, because if we weren’t, there is no way we could stick the mental pressure we sometimes have to endure. It is a fairly tough job in terms of mental health, isolation, poor weather and financial difficulties. But we put up with all these things and then we see a good-quality calf being born and getting up and sucking its mother unaided.
Buzz
That buzz makes it all worthwhile. There are actually lots of small moments that somehow make it all worthwhile. They say a sign of madness is always doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Us farmers do the same thing every year and often hope for a different result. The result we hope for is for things to be more financially viable. Unfortunately, a lot of what can achieve this result is out of our hands. But we continue to work and we continue to hope.
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