Richie
Well-Known Member
Michael O'Leary popping up with personalized attacks on him every few months is single handedly enough to make me like Eamon Ryan and think he's doing a good job, whatever other doubts I have about him.
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I’d agree with some of the above - the end of milk subsidies in particular saw a gold rush level of investment in milk production/# cows - ignoring the basic economics of what increased supply would likely do to price.It will cost huge money to reform agriculture but put the funds on the table and most farmers will buy in very quickly.
The Irish government heavily supported a huge increase in the dairy herd in the 21st century. They are more to blame than the common farmer.
Food is amazingly cheap - I rarely spend 10 euro a day on food.
This will no longer be the case if or when we do things properly
The transition would be expensive but after we would have more food (veggie diet). Animal food is overwhelmingly exported from Ireland - big part of economy.I’d agree with some of the above - the end of milk subsidies in particular saw a gold rush level of investment in milk production/# cows - ignoring the basic economics of what increased supply would likely do to price.
But 50+% of farm incomes are from CAP already(although not equally distributed across sectors)
Ideally you’d use the cap as a stick, and legislate/regulate to ensure a more realistic price for food that matched the cost of production…The transition would be expensive but after we would have more food (veggie diet). Animal food is overwhelmingly exported from Ireland - big part of economy.
I really don't have enough grasp of economics to assess how it's done .
Like late stage capitalism in general this is all too late we should have done this a few decades ago.
Yeah, use the existing level of subsidies to drive the change that’s required.i've probably espoused on this before, but the most sensible way of going about it would be to slowly wean ireland of hill/marginal farming. AFAIK hill sheep farming is becoming much more of an old man's job anyway; and they earn fuck all from it. pay them not to do it, and let the land revert to nature.
e.g. the average hill sheep farmer gets subsidies of over €18k (2017 figures) but actually has a 'take home' pay of less than €15k. so they lose approx €3.5k.
so you could pay them €15k to let their land go fallow; they suffer no change in income, don't actually need to farm; the taxpayer saves over €3k and the loss is the (slightly!) lower agricultural output.
I can't find the study now, but it's shockingly low. The damage done to the local flora is severe, even when the number of sheep grazing isn't that high.i've never actually successfully found out that the average output/efficiency of a hill sheep farm is. i can't imagine it's particularly high.
i've probably espoused on this before, but the most sensible way of going about it would be to slowly wean ireland of hill/marginal farming. AFAIK hill sheep farming is becoming much more of an old man's job anyway; and they earn fuck all from it. pay them not to do it, and let the land revert to nature.
e.g. the average hill sheep farmer gets subsidies of over €18k (2017 figures) but actually has a 'take home' pay of less than €15k. so they lose approx €3.5k.
so you could pay them €15k to let their land go fallow; they suffer no change in income, don't actually need to farm; the taxpayer saves over €3k and the loss is the (slightly!) lower agricultural output.
I absolutely agree this should be done, but I suspect culture is more important than money. These old guys aren't keeping sheep to make money, really, they're farming because they're farmers. Same reason I make music - I like it, I'm interested in it, it's part of my identity - also it gives me something in common with other musicians, which gives me a social circle, which is important to mepay them not to do it, and let the land revert to nature
Well it isn't going to rain today.Just looked at the Met Eireann forecast for Sunday 18th February as I am going to a gig this day week.
Torrential rain is forecast that night.
From midnight on 18th/19th Feb. Dublin city is currently forecast to get 9.6 mm of rain that hour!
I posted this FTR to see how accurately they can forecast 7 days 16 hours away.Met Éireann - The Irish Meteorological Service
Met Éireann, the Irish National Meteorological Service, is the leading provider of weather information and related services for Ireland.www.met.ie
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