It may not be widely known but I think the Clare suckler farmers must spend more time choosing a new stock bull than they do a wife. They spend hours studying pedigrees and bloodlines, shape and conformation, colour and temperament.
These are all important characteristics in their ultimate choice of bull (and maybe useful if you’re looking for a wife).
With all this stuff in their heads, they forsake Lisdoonvarna and head up the country to the annual Charolais or Limousin sales, often parting with over €6,000 for their heart’s desire.
And it shows. After the annual holiday to the Burren, I come away again, as ever, impressed with the top-class quality of the Co Clare suckler herds.
One would think the beef industry was flourishing unless you know, as we do, to the contrary
As we ripped around the sunny country roads in the open-top Mazda, the air was full of the scent of baled hay in the fields and large piles of silage bales in every farmyard. Nationally, I’d say never before was there as much fodder saved, which is good news.
One would think the beef industry was flourishing unless you know, as we do, to the contrary.
As if Brexit wasn’t enough for beef farmers to deal with, the EU has now opened the doors to South American beef.
Yes, I’m aware that we’ve heard more spin from Commissioner Hogan than a Belarussian in a bog telling us that it’s a very small amount of beef and nothing to worry about as its years away and all the rest of it.
But that is to miss the point entirely. This isn’t simply about Brazilian steaks flooding the market. It’s about EU double standards and farmer betrayal.
The fact of the matter is that Commissioner Hogan has, on his watch, allowed access to a dodgy Brazilian regime, which has no respect for the environment whatsoever, to ship their poorly traceable and suspect beef into the EU. It’s a kick in the teeth to European farmers.
That’s 40ha of rainforest gone every hour, forever. The Amazon produces 20% of the world’s oxygen
We, as farmers, are not permitted to remove a few yards of hedgerow while the Brazilians clear a football pitch-sized area of Amazonian rainforest every minute in order to produce more beef.
That’s 40ha of rainforest gone every hour, forever. The Amazon produces 20% of the world’s oxygen.
It is complete hypocrisy from the EU powers-that-be and two fingers to environmentally conscious European farmers who are doing their best to lower carbon emissions. It is beyond belief.
Beef (and poultry) were sacrificed because the Germans want to flog their cars into Brazil.
Perhaps Britain is right in wanting to be free from Brussels with this sort of hypocrisy.
Now, I’m relieved to have that off my chest because it’s been bugging me all week. But to finish with beef, I’m glad to read that suckler farmers are to get a decent wedge of the divisive €100m beef bailout fund – if it ever happens.
I had expected the winter barley to be closer to being ripe in the week I was away
Personally, I’d give it all to them because otherwise it just becomes a subsidy to the meat factories for using Brexit – which hasn’t even happened – as an excuse to lower beef prices.
I had expected the winter barley to be closer to being ripe in the week I was away.
But it’ll be all for the better with, I’d say, the barley harvest likely to begin in the last week of July.
I approach the harvest with a heightened sense of optimism this year and think all the crops should be good if not better than that.
Oilseed rape desiccation should be happening by the time you read this, with its harvest typically on the August bank holiday weekend. Hopefully, the weather will oblige as it certainly has so far this summer.
Farmer Writes: father-son relationships are never easy