It almost took until the final quarter of the year for the weather to come good and that was welcomed by farmers across the country. It took serious pressure off and allowed field work to be complete for tillage farmers and allowed livestock farmers graze later than usual to make up for a challenging 12 months. Those who had eaten into fodder reserves in July and early August, as grass wasn’t growing, had an opportunity to replenish their silage stocks; and cattle didn’t have to be housed as early as last year either. It’s unclear as yet if the good weather was balancing out the bad spring or if we were just being prepared for another bad spring.
Weather and soil
David Wall, soil scientist with Teagasc, confirmed what many farmers assumed when giving a presentation at The Irish Farmers Journal’s ‘Dairy Day’ in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on November 21. Presenting data with the rainfall levels at Teagasc’s Johnstown Castle site in Co Wexford, he said there were two unusual phenomena in weather that farmers had to deal with this year. For the first half of the year, until early June, the land was saturated due to higher than usual rainfall. That was in a free draining soil so imagine that scenario on some of the more challenging soils in West Cork. The second phenomenon was that within days there were soils close to a drought scenario. That period extended from the June 10 to the end of August. His figures confirmed what many farmers felt. The continuous rain followed by cold easterly and northerly winds impacted grass growth nationally. Most farmers have grown about two tonne less dry matter per hectare than the annual average.
Weather finally got some air of normality from late August and that lasted right up until around November 20, before the cold snap; and Storm Bert arrived to remind us it is winter. That lifted the overall mood in farming and was to be welcomed. It also helped that milk price began rising around a similar time, so while the nitrates derogation remains firmly to the forefront of West Cork’s dairy farmers, there’s a more positive vibe around farming compared to this time twelve months ago. Beef price has been good for much of the year too and as those are the two main prices impacting farmers in West Cork, it should be a nice boost for the overall economy of the region.
General Election
The General Election will be concluded by the time you’re reading this and the promises made during it will fade away. While I’ve never had any political affiliation, I’m an interested observer in politics but I do tend to switch out when it comes to promises because invariably farmers and all voters are told what they want to hear and the reality of putting them into action isn’t always possible. This election is interesting from a farming perspective because since the foundation of both parties, farmers have been able to play Fine Gael and Fianna Fail against each other depending on who was in government and who was in opposition. The confidence and supply arrangement from 2016 to 2020 was an unofficial coalition of the two but the last number of years have seen the two serve at cabinet together and some farmers I’ve spoken to are a little bit betwixt and between on what to do now. It’s been interesting to watch to say the least.
TB
The spectre of TB still hangs over West Cork at present with a number of major outbreaks across the region. Nationally, the number of reactors exceeded 40,000 by the end of October. This is one of the highest years on record. At the end of September, it was higher than for the entire of 2023. In West Cork alone there’s close to 5,000 reactors and this is causing extra hardship on farms. Herd incidence nationally stood at 5.62 per cent at the end of September, a rise of almost one per cent over the year. It’s worse in these parts, in Cork south it has risen from seven per cent to 8.59 per cent in herd incidence.
In response to a question from the Irish Farmers Journal earlier this year, the Department of Agriculture said that in area of major infrastructure works such as roads, wind farms or in places where forestry clear fell took place, there was an increased risk of TB within a 1km radius due to wildlife disturbance.
In a recent meeting in Mitchelstown earlier in October a senior department vet said that while wildlife may be how TB enters a herd, there is a greater spread within species of the disease rather than between species.
At home
At home everything with the exception of the two stock bulls and a group of older cows are housed. Those cows are grazing silage ground that is too difficult to put cows with young calves on in spring and they should be finished grazing by mid-December. Usually by the end of November, I’d be well into a weekly yard routine but as stock has been out later, I haven’t found my rhythm yet. There’s another bit of toing and froing between pens before things settle down. The last of the weaning didn’t start until the end of the month so I haven’t the decisions around who goes in what pen signed off properly yet.
I’m trying a few small changes this winter to ease the workload a bit further, so hopefully there’ll be a bit more downtime this winter. It’s funny how you can get into a routine and even though there could be an easier way to do it, you don’t change until you’re under time pressure or you’re incapacitated for some reason. One way I counter that change is to just keep young stock in one yard for the winter. Previously, finishing cattle would have been housed at that yard and, as it’s further from home, it meant going there twice every day. This year, I kept that yard empty for as long as possible; it meant silage stocks were full there, slurry tanks were empty and the workload was confined to one yard. I have no idea why I did that for so long other than it was the annual routine and I was accustomed to it. I’ll need to stand back now and see where else I can make life a bit easier around the yard.
