Playing the hand that you're dealt

What are the hardest things about farming down in south Kerry?

“Weather,” chips in Colm Mangan from Dromid. “If you have sheep, you’re looking at a six-month winter anyway. Having the ground scattered out around the place would be next. When you have land fragmented, there’s a lot of time and expense on the road. It’s all money out.”

“It’s dead time too,” adds Fionan Kissane from Renard. Not many farms in the area are free from fragmentation, so everyone has adapted.

The jeep and box, or tractor and trailer are utilised a bit more, as there are greater distances than just crossing the road involved.

For Colm, there are about 15 miles between the furthest blocks of land he farms. Fionan has a bit more road to cover, with 20 miles separating the two bits of land on the outer reaches of the ground he farms.

Farmers in the Iveragh Peninsula have become accustomed to playing the hand they’re dealt as best they can, in terms of the land and facilities they have.

“I always wanted to farm,’” said Paddy Fitzgerald from Waterville. “We had a dairy farm, but we were small. We were only milking about 15 cows. The ground available near the yard is limited, so we moved to sucklers in 2010.

“The land is a bit scattered, but we can handle a bigger number of sucklers. I calve about 40 cows, that are split between summer and spring-calving. That suits the yard and is good for cashflow too.”

Although his ground is spread out, relative to Colm and Fionan, he can walk to most of it on the road. The issue of fragmentation is also a consideration when an opportunity arises to rent extra ground. With a lot of land tied into the Organic Scheme and ACRES, land doesn’t come up for leasing too often and when it does, the convenience of the land relative to an existing holding has to be factored in. If it requires more driving in a different direction, is it worth it?

Or, if the land hasn’t been farmed much in recent years, factoring in costs like fencing or digger work is a must. In those situations, it would have to be a long-term lease with reasonable terms and possibly with low rent ,or rent free for the first year or two, to acknowledge that extra cost.

Conditions

Adapting to the prevailing conditions means for most farmers a summer-calving system suits best. Having ground available for making quality silage is a priority and to do this Fionan puts his cows out to rough grazing and out-farms in late March or April after weaning. In recent years they are grouped according to when they are due to calve and brought back home shortly before calving. This allows him to build up silage stocks on the land close to the yard and have after grass coming for freshly calved cows.

The daily driving around to check stock means that the south Kerry farmers aren’t averse to covering a bit more road when it comes to buying bulls too. Charolais is the main bull breed of choice and Fionan purchased two Charolais bulls in Tullamore at a society sale. Colm went a bit further.

“We went to Elphin in Roscommon this year to buy a bull. You wouldn’t go very easy-calving because you want to bring a bit of size. That’s important when you’re doing weanlings.”

It’s also the reason why Paddy has switched to using Charolais bulls on his cows.

“I’m probably getting 70kg or 80kg more on the weanlings by sale time. I have a Limousin and Charolais base in the cows. We kept heifers from the Friesian calves and we’re gone three or four generations away from dairy. The Charolais came in a few years ago and we’re seeing the benefit now.”

Of the pair of bulls Fionan purchased, one is 4% calving difficulty, the other 9%.

“The figures are a guide,” he said. “We had ones that were meant to be low calving difficulty and we had a few problems after.”

“It’s down to the honesty of the farmer that had bred them too,” said Colm.

Talking of figures and indexes, the view in south Kerry is that they’re followed if they’re scheme related, but not heeded much outside of that.

“We had a high replacement index bull and the last few years, just to keep the star thing to cover ourselves for the scheme really, we picked the heifers off the cows that are there the longest and kept an eye out for them as they came through,” Fionan said.

Replacement heifers

While a share of replacements are kept on each of the three farms, other heifers are purchased.

“Scope and power is what I look for in them,” said Colm.

Calving heifers at two years of age is seen as a target for the suckler herd, but while they have tried to do it, it doesn’t always work out.

There’s a preference for power with these farmers when it comes to heifers though and as a result most calve at over 30 months.

“We did try calve heifers at two and we have done it, but you’d want to pick your bull for them and it can be difficult. We had a lot more problems when we were doing it compared to now.

“They might calve down at two years, but they might slip the next year. It’s very hard to get them back in-calf. That’s the biggest problem. If they’re that bit older and they’re empty, they’ll go a long way to buying a replacement.

Our heifers are calving down at three years and it makes a big difference and we’d have a few bought in that calve at 30 months.”

Declining population

The South Kerry U13 football league final in late July saw eight clubs represented in two teams. Skellig Ranger, St Michael’s and Foilmore played St Mary’s, Renard, Valentia, Waterville and Dromid.

For added context, St Mary’s is the club in the town of Cahersiveen, but even they struggle for numbers.

Student numbers in local schools have fallen considerably too. Economic activity is largely based around tourism and dry stock farming, with the former confined to two or three months of the year. If even that, say the lads.

A lot of it is only pass through. Tourists are bussed from Killarney around the Ring of Kerry are sent with a packed lunch. That’s not much good for the local cafes or shops, they say.

One option they suggest is to retain young families in the area and allow for money to be spent within the community on other services, is an enhanced suckler cow payment. The beef welfare scheme is cautiously welcomed.

“When it’s on the first 40 cows and only for a year, will the man with 10 or 15 cows bother tying into these schemes?” said Fionan.

All three agree that one proper, long-term scheme would be better and more appealing than the current set up of a main suckler scheme with annual additional scheme.

They suggest a payment needs to be based on production and set at least €400/cow. A €200 base with selective add-ons like meal feeding, vaccination, weighing and proper weaning.