back to bacon.. (1 Viewer)

[Squiggle]

Yeah, my nuncle has names for all his cows and shit. They're awesome. I've never asked what he farms them for, but he's vegetarian.

However, I know that in the States, people like him, and the people you know Skiggs, (while there are lots of them), produce a teeny minority of the ridiculous amount of beef and dairy (and other weird shit) consumed. I dont' know what the buzz is in Ireland though. Anyone?

I'm pretty certain that there are few, if any, factory farm situations here in Ireland.

This report on the Teagasc site is interesting and focused on grazing the animals - not rearing them indoors.

feed is the main cost centre in beef production and grazed grass is by far the cheapest feed, about one fifth the cost of concentrates in Ireland

My Dad was a dairy farmer and during the harsh winters of the early 80's we struggled to feed ourselves while having to fork out a lot of money in feed and vitamin and mineral supplements for the animals. And let me assure you that the months and blisters involved in clearing out the 4-5 feet of straw and other matter that accumulates in a shed over 3-4 months is very unpleasant. No farmer here would want to keep cattle indoors for long.

 

[Wobbler]

The brother works for dairygold, said they're trying to squeeze all the small farmers out of the business so they can go down the factory farm road. They got in the head guy from kerrygold a few years ago and the first thing he did was fire half the staff, devalue all of dairygold's stock and put milk prices down (as if farmers weren't getting shit money enough from milk). Also, the government are trying to make it hard as possible for farmers, as much time spent on paperwork now as on manual labour.

So yeah, give it twenty or even ten years and there'll be no small farms left.

I hope you're wrong. There's a huge difference in the quality of well reared meat, I hope more people will pay more for better quality. Not to mention the ethical side of it.

 

[RSJ]

I hope you're wrong. There's a huge difference in the quality of well reared meat, I hope more people will pay more for better quality. Not to mention the ethical side of it.

I wish i was wrong dude, my da was one of the farmers squeezed out by falling milk prices and the huge amount of paperwork involved, he just retired last year having farmed since he was 14.

 

[broken arm]

I wish i was wrong dude, my da was one of the farmers squeezed out by falling milk prices and the huge amount of paperwork involved, he just retired last year having farmed since he was 14.

i think we talked about this before but..... I agree the administrative burden is a nightmare for small businesses but it is the situation now for almost all small businesses in any production sector. I'd like to see more innovation in the farming sector for the protection of diversity. I have seen examples of small dairy farmers cutting ties with large bottlers and on a co-operative basis purchasing bottling systems and selling in localised and niche markets. There is a great deal of resistance to change at work in the farming sector and they need help to get over that.

saying that, I'm not a farmer and I understand the risks...

 

[therealjohnny]

I hope more people will pay more for better quality. Not to mention the ethical side of it.

A famous chef talked about this on the Pat Kenny show. He said that people should be spending about 12 quid for a chicken as, to raise one ethically that's how much it would cost. The audience laughed at him, unsurprisingly.

If meat is cheap it's because the animals are raised for as little cost as possible, which generally means they haven't been treated as well as they could have been.

 

[magicbastarder]

isn't there some new scheme where €400m is being made available over the next seven years to allow/bribe farmers to go organic, or change their farming practices to something more in tune with the land?

 

[Wobbler]

A famous chef talked about this on the Pat Kenny show. He said that people should be spending about 12 quid for a chicken as, to raise one ethically that's how much it would cost. The audience laughed at him, unsurprisingly.

If meat is cheap it's because the animals are raised for as little cost as possible, which generally means they haven't been treated as well as they could have been.

If people ate less meat they might be prepared to pay a bit more for it. Especially if the quality is good.

 

[plug]

isn't there some new scheme where €400m is being made available over the next seven years to allow/bribe farmers to go organic, or change their farming practices to something more in tune with the land?

sounds interesting. do you know where you read/heard that/link/etc.?

 

[RSJ]

i think we talked about this before but..... I agree the administrative burden is a nightmare for small businesses but it is the situation now for almost all small businesses in any production sector. I'd like to see more innovation in the farming sector for the protection of diversity. I have seen examples of small dairy farmers cutting ties with large bottlers and on a co-operative basis purchasing bottling systems and selling in localised and niche markets. There is a great deal of resistance to change at work in the farming sector and they need help to get over that.

saying that, I'm not a farmer and I understand the risks...

On the point of the amount of administrative work involved, i agree there needs to be plenty of traceability and such so there needs to be as much paperwork as any small business, but when weighed against how much farmers actually make (as in take home pay after paying for feed, vet bills, tractor maintanence yadda yadda yadda), it's not really worth it to a lot of people.

As for the co-op stuff, farmers are mostly old dudes these days, there's not many young lads getting into it any more, and i doubt they want to run the very real risk of ending up with loads of milk that nobody wants to buy. What to do with it then? It's not like the good old days when you could just pour it in the river (JOKE) or like most other businesses where unused product is easily disposed of. Plus, have you seen the amount of milk your average farmer produces a day? I'm not great with figures, but it's roughly shitloads, much more than you'd really expect.

EDIT: My da was milking 70 cows last time i worked for him, and using the sink to the right as a guess of it's size (assuming it's about ten foot deep), i reckon we'd fill this tank about every three days in the summer, day and a half in winter (calving season). Ours was a bit smaller and got emptied every two days in summer (less milk as cows are long since finished calving) and every day in winter (cows newly lactating from just giving birth, shitloads of milk, never mind the gallons that go to actually feeding calves).

If people ate less meat they might be prepared to pay a bit more for it. Especially if the quality is good.

I honestly think most people don't really think about the quality of what they eat, me included.

 

[Wobbler]

I honestly think most people don't really think about the quality of what they eat, me included.

You're right, people don't. That could change though.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

I honestly think most people don't really think about the quality of what they eat, me included.

So much of it now is tasteless crap that most people aren't even aware of what they are missing.

If you do spend the extra on really good meat it tastes better, you appreciate it more, you eat less of it.

It's still hard though to walk past a big bag of chicken breasts for half nothing in the supermarket.

 

[ratmonkey]

If people ate less meat they might be prepared to pay a bit more for it. Especially if the quality is good.

I'd be prepared to pay more if a butcher would stay open past 6.

 

[Wobbler]

I'd be prepared to pay more if a butcher would stay open past 6.

Buy all your food in centra.

 

[magicbastarder]

sounds interesting. do you know where you read/heard that/link/etc.?

http://www.agriculture.ie/index.jsp?file=pressrel/2007/147-2007.xml

it's €400m per year, not over the seven years, as i thought.
there's also this:
http://www.agriculture.ie/index.jsp?file=pressrel/2007/152-2007.xml

 

[jane]

isn't there some new scheme where €400m is being made available over the next seven years to allow/bribe farmers to go organic, or change their farming practices to something more in tune with the land?

Yes, they want to encourage people to go organic, but as part of the whole 'artisan' market, rather than making organic an affordable way to eat for the non-monied population. Encouraging people to 'go organic' does not mean they want to make it accessible. Probably the opposite: by encouraging farmers to go organic, they can wash their hands of small farmers by telling them just to hike up the prices for the jackeens.

ORganic farming has been labelled a 'lifestyle choice product', or something to that effect. Which is fine, if the food isn't a staple. I'd rather pay more for a lump of gubbeen or delicious smelly Irish cheese than have a cheap kilo of red cheddar, but that's because it's not the staple of my diet.

Richard Corrigan was the chef who said to buy organic chickens, and yeah, people were upset, and he was kind of an arrogant dick about it, but he had a point. If you eat chicken as a treat, you can spend more and enjoy it because it's not the staple of your diet. I'm like that about sweets, cheese, booze, etc.

I really, really hope the Green Ministers will do something to really push for the farm diversity, seasonal availability, but also affordability. There are still a hell of a lot of people for whom 'going organic' is hardly one of their options.

 

[RSJ]

My da goes mental when i say anything about organic food. He thinks it's the biggest load of mebolix ever. "So you pay extra for food that's potentially full of loads of bacteria that the cheaper food has been treated against?". It's fun.

 

[Wobbler]

Yes, they want to encourage people to go organic, but as part of the whole 'artisan' market, rather than making organic an affordable way to eat for the non-monied population. Encouraging people to 'go organic' does not mean they want to make it accessible. Probably the opposite: by encouraging farmers to go organic, they can wash their hands of small farmers by telling them just to hike up the prices for the jackeens.

ORganic farming has been labelled a 'lifestyle choice product', or something to that effect. Which is fine, if the food isn't a staple. I'd rather pay more for a lump of gubbeen or delicious smelly Irish cheese than have a cheap kilo of red cheddar, but that's because it's not the staple of my diet.

Richard Corrigan was the chef who said to buy organic chickens, and yeah, people were upset, and he was kind of an arrogant dick about it, but he had a point. If you eat chicken as a treat, you can spend more and enjoy it because it's not the staple of your diet. I'm like that about sweets, cheese, booze, etc.

I really, really hope the Green Ministers will do something to really push for the farm diversity, seasonal availability, but also affordability. There are still a hell of a lot of people for whom 'going organic' is hardly one of their options.

Meat doesn't have to be part of our staple diet. Most people eat too much meat anyway. You're right though.

My da goes mental when i say anything about organic food. He thinks it's the biggest load of mebolix ever. "So you pay extra for food that's potentially full of loads of bacteria that the cheaper food has been treated against?". It's fun.

Tell your dad that most of the chemicals put in non organic food is to improve shelf life. Obviously if food has a shorter shelf life it costs more.

Still it really pisses me off to see organic vegetables (I think I may have gone off topic a bit here) from Peru, Kenya or worst of all, Israel.

 

[jane]

I hope you're wrong. There's a huge difference in the quality of well reared meat, I hope more people will pay more for better quality. Not to mention the ethical side of it.

There was talk of there being only two major dairies (and a few smaller processing industries) and around the same number of beef processing plants, but it seems to be delivered as 'foregone conclusion'. I know in terms of reversing trends as huge as this, 20 years isn't a long time, but surely, it's long enough to make some kind of difference?

By 2025, there will only be 10,000 full-time commercial farmers in Ireland, with an additional possible 30,000 part time. And, what they call "transitional farms with adverse demographic features", which means "old people with no heirs whose farmland we can 'acquire' and develop into luxury apartments to rent to tourists who come to see our unspoiled farmland." For comparison, there were 136,000 farmers in 2002 (not sure if that includes part time?) and there will be 105,000 in 2015.

http://www.nuim.ie/nirsa/research/publications/documents/book_rural_foresight_2005.pdf


I think they're well aware of this, but the whole 'if current trends continue' is being treated as gospel.

 

[RSJ]

Tell your dad that most of the chemicals put in non organic food is to improve shelf life. Obviously if food has a shorter shelf life it costs more.

I ain't telling that man nothing. He's an informational spunge and an incredible debater (he was on the town council for about thirty years so he runs rings around pretty much everyone). I just smile, nod, and wait for the ground to swally me up.

 

[jane]

Meat doesn't have to be part of our staple diet. Most people eat too much meat anyway. You're right though.

That's what I mean, that the whole organic/non-organic argument collapses when you realise it's not necessarily about eating meat or being veggie, but if everyone ate less meat, it'd be way better for the world. It's funny how vegetarianism is a weird concept to a lot of countries where meat isn't a staple of the diet. Italians, for one. They eat meat very frequently, but not necessarily as a main course.

It'd be interesting to look at a study of the relationship between the number of vegetarians in a few countries/regions and the meat-to-veg ratio of the average meal, and factoring in the number of times meat is consumed per week. It'd be totally thrown off by economics, though, I'm sure. Most people in the world don't have the luxury of choosing to be vegetarian.