What Niall Ryan from the Department of Agriculture nitrates division told farmers at a recent CAP consultation in Mitchelstown highlighted some of the main challenges faced by Irish livestock farmers.

“Our animal numbers are up, our fertiliser sales are up, our soil fertility isn’t really going anywhere, the last report from the EPA showed our water quality was down by 3%.”

It’s not great reading if you are a farmer in derogation and have repayments on a loan that are dependent on a certain level of production.

Farmers there have reached breaking point

There’s not much wriggle room there if policy changes are implemented.

To date we have escaped the most dramatic elements of herd reduction experienced by farmers in the Netherlands.

Farmers there have reached breaking point as we saw during their tractor protests last week.

Two-tier approach

In contrast to the Dutch, Irish farmers haven’t been asked to go to the same lengths. Yet. The requirement of a 5% reduction in organic nitrogen to receive funding from the BEAM scheme was a start.

It also displayed a two-tier approach, one that reminded me of the famous line from George Orwells Animal farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

That requirement for beef farmers to reduce numbers while dairy numbers continue to grow has created discontent that I’ve noticed surfacing more often this year than others.

Whether we like it or not, environmental measures such as water quality will have more influence on how we farm

That’s unhealthy in a sector where both sides are more dependent on each other than many think.

Whether we like it or not, environmental measures such as water quality will have more influence on how we farm.

There’s every chance that a quota on organic nitrogen will be placed on bovine farmers; a cow licence of sorts with a cap put on the national herd regardless of whether the cow’s denomination is dairy or suckler. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility.

Emissions

There’s been a different take on reducing emissions on this farm. One that has resulted in some money savings.

We have continued to focus on lowering the use of artificial nitrogen.

This year saw the least artificial fertiliser ever spread on the farm. Just over 8.5t was used.

That’s not far off two-thirds less than what was spread in 2012.

Extra clover, annual soil sampling, strategic slurry use and thinking a bit differently have enabled this.

Playing the weather helps too.

The last of the slurry went out Monday, just a few loads to get any paddocks that didn’t get fertiliser in the last spreading run.

The young cows with bull calves will be brought back and housed before the weekend

The finishing heifers were housed last week. I’ll run them over the scales in the coming days and take a few dung samples to see if they require any dose.

Half have received nothing since last autumn but they are thriving well.

The young cows with bull calves will be brought back and housed before the weekend.

The plan was to leave them out until the end of the month but the weather doesn’t seem to want to entertain that idea.

Rain looks to be on the cards for the next while and ground conditions won’t hold up so in an effort to extend the grazing for the in-calf heifers, the simplest thing to do is bring them home.