Small farmers the big losers from nitrates changes

Plans to reduce the upper stocking rate for farmers operating under a nitrates derogation from 250kg organic N/ha to 220kg organic N/ha will have massive repercussions for family farms across Ireland.

Small- and medium-sized farmers like Tim Mullane, whom the Irish Farmers Journal visited this week, could be wiped out of business.

Tim is milking 75 cows with his wife Eva and five young children at Iniscarra, near Blarney in Cork. Technical performance is outstanding and Tim, a former contestant in the Macra Young Farmer of the Year, is proving he was a worthy candidate for the title.

Average growth

Average grass growth is 14.8t DM/ha and the cows deliver over 560kg MS/cow from about 1t of meal per cow. They have an EBI of €251, placing them in the top 1% nationally.

Empty rate is 10% after 10 weeks of breeding and the six-week calving rate is consistently above 90%. In terms of technical performance, these key performance indicators (KPIs) place the farm as being one of the best in the country.

Not only that but Tim has invested heavily in the yard to make it safe, labour-friendly and compliant. As he says himself he has 20% more of everything he needs – 20% more cubicles and 20% more slurry storage.

He has also invested in low-emission slurry spreading and has 20% of the farm with good clover contents. The herd is also in the middle band for nitrates.

Last year, Tim’s organic nitrogen figure was 200kg N/ha, so, on the face of it, he’s not affected by the planned reduction to 220kg N/ha, but this is not the case, because Tim’s farm business is supported by leased land.

Leased block

Tim has 20ha of owned land – the milking platform which is highly stocked at around 3.8 cows/ha.

A leased block of 28ha is enabling him to farm as he does.

This land rears the heifers and grows the silage and facilitates a lower overall stocking rate. It is 7km away from the home farm and contractors draw slurry to the silage ground, so nutrients are being recycled.

Only soiled water is spread on the milking block.

Huge increases in land lease costs, as a result of changes to nitrates, is a substantial risk to the Mullane family farm.

Concern

Tim is concerned that over time he and other small- and medium-sized farmers will be priced out of the market by larger dairy farms.

Losing access to leased land would be catastrophic to the Mullane family farm.

The IFA held an information meeting for local and national politicians on the implications of changes to the nitrates rules on the Mullane farm in mid-April.

At the meeting organised by Cork Central and west IFA chairs Conor O’Leary and Donal O’Donovan, it was said that without leased land the Mullanes would only be able to milk 48 cows if stocked at 220kg N/ha.

Local Teagasc adviser Adrian O’Callaghan outlined that the average net profit on the Mullane farm between 2017 and 2021 was €1,000/cow, excluding Tim’s own labour charge, tax and capital repayments.

Net effect

The net effect of losing the leased land would be less cows milked and heifers contract-reared. As a result, the net profit would reduce to €39,000 per year which would have huge repercussions for the family farm income.

The case study highlights how the law of unintended consequences can work.

Here we have a farmer doing an excellent job with an extremely high level of efficiency and operating well under the new maximum stocking rate planned for next year.

By right, the new rules shouldn’t affect him but because he is relying on leased land, if that leased land becomes unaffordable to a small- and medium-sized farmer they could go out of business.

Larger farmers are running bigger businesses and therefore have more money to pay for leased land.

Changes to the nitrates action programme are already increasing the demand for land, resulting in substantial price increases over the last six months.

Trend

This trend is set to continue as thousands of farmers operating above 220kg N/ha scramble to secure additional land so as to maintain existing cow numbers.

We are already seeing tillage and beef farmers priced out of the land rental market.

The point the IFA is making is that if these nitrates rules are implemented, small- and full-time farmers like Tim could end up having to get an off-farm job to supplement his farm income or else get out of cows altogether.

This is because there just isn’t enough income from 48 cows, no matter how good they are.

Key jobs over the next few weeks on the Mullane farm include reseeding a field on the outblock, oversowing clover on a paddock on the milking block, powerwashing sheds, topping up the silage ground with nitrogen and, of course, the start of breeding.

Kieran McMahon is a UCC student working on the farm for the spring. Tim is starting breeding a little bit later this year on 1 May and plans to finish up a little earlier too so as to have a nine-week breeding period.

The last cow calved in early April, cows are in good condition score and are milking well at 28.5l at 4.12% fat and 3.62% protein or 2.27kg MS/cow. Average farm cover is 178kg/cow with growth at 68kg/day and cows are on 3kg of meal.

Automated heat detection collars were purchased last year, so this will be the first year Tim will be using them.

He says his main reason for buying them is for heat detection in the evenings.

Tim is very active in the local GAA club and with five young children he often has relief milkers doing the evening milking during the summer.

Heifers will be watched for standing heat for 10 days and then those not served will be injected with prostaglandin.

Tim says he usually gets all heifers served within two weeks. He won’t be watching them for the third week but will watch repeats from week four and five before letting off a vasectomised bull. No intervention is used in the cows. If a cow hasn’t come bulling he’ll just give her more time. No stock bulls are used on the farm and most of the cows will get served with dairy AI as Tim has a steady market for replacement heifer sales.

He doesn’t use sexed semen and almost all the cows are Holstein Friesian with an average weight of around 550kg per cow. Tim’s bull team for 2023 is outlined in Table 1.

The first thing he looks at when picking bulls is protein percentage, then protein kilos. He aims to use bulls with between zero and 50kg of milk in their proof.