High price rams bad publicity

egbert · Oct 13, 2018

cowboysupper said:
I

I doubt decision makers pay much attention to a few headline prices in the farming press. They need evidence to support policy decisions, much of which will he derided from official economic statistics analysed over a 5-10 year period.

I remember attending a CAP meeting organised by our Department of Agriculture in NI a few years back, just before area payments came in over here. There were some arguments made by farmers about the need for coupled payments to be reintroduced as they argued it was getting harder and harder to make a living from suckler cows. The farmers said they were all going to go out of business if the economics didn’t improve. In response the official pulled out a graph which showed that since payments were decoupled in 2005, suckler cow numbers had been on a gradual increase over the 10 year period. The official said why would they subsidise a sector which appeared to be growing.

We all as farmers know that suckler beef is a low margin sector but unless there is evidence that a lot of those farms are going out of business, the reality is those officials will pay little attention and let the market take its course until something major happens.

It’s the same for sheep, as long as we keep producing, government policy is unlikely to change much apart from the ongoing pursuit of new markets and improved standards.

Most of us love our job too much to give up or change and do something else. The officials know this too.

I think arguments around sheep and Brexit have been well made and are well understood by officials. But it’s a low priority in the bigger Brexit picture. The officials will only react after the worst happens unfortunately.

I'm sure what you say is true enough, but an old pal of mine was negotiating in whitehall the week a blackie tup first crossed £50k. MAFF bigwig stopped the team up short, saying 'how can you be skint when.....etc etc'
I'm sure it didn't make a lot of difference at the end of the day, but it did have to be explained.

Hilly · Oct 13, 2018

egbert said:
I'm sure what you say is true enough, but an old pal of mine was negotiating in whitehall the week a blackie tup first crossed £50k. MAFF bigwig stopped the team up short, saying 'how can you be skint when.....etc etc'
I'm sure it didn't make a lot of difference at the end of the day, but it did have to be explained.

Out of interest what was the explanation ?

egbert · Oct 13, 2018

Hilly said:
Out of interest what was the explanation ?

I daresay there';s a thread here somewhere to discuss the relative merits of silly money blackie tups,
but i would hope our representatives explained that these prices weren't necessarily a reflection of how ordinary hill farmers operate.
Certainly the hlca and suckler/ewe premiums continued subsequent to the meeting.
(and no, I'm not wanting to get into that discussion either!)

CharcoalWally · Oct 13, 2018

egbert said:
I'm sure what you say is true enough, but an old pal of mine was negotiating in whitehall the week a blackie tup first crossed £50k. MAFF bigwig stopped the team up short, saying 'how can you be skint when.....etc etc'
I'm sure it didn't make a lot of difference at the end of the day, but it did have to be explained.

Politicians are devious and deceitful , and a lie trips off their snake tongues as easy as breathing though . There are incredibly skilful at turning situations to their own advantage.

October 1998. The beef industry was on the floor being mauled Two years of BSE had kicked in and devastated the trade. Bullocks going from £15 -£100 below their kiloweight and heifers being given away . Confidence had disappeared .

On the Tuesday of the Bull Sales at Perth, :the sale of the Simmental bulls was briefly interrupted to introduce John Sewell, the then Agriculture Minister in Blair's first Cabinet, to the rostrum. The sale resumed and, boy it was hard going . While the Agriculture Minister looked on, roughly 15-20 bulls went through the ring. Most of these went out unsold, as nobody had any money to buy a bull ,a couple got knocked down at 1500 guineas, and finally the previous day's champion went through to another Simmental breeder for 10000 guineas. Then Sewell departed having seen enough.

Later that week he was spinning furiously that the industry needed no emergency help as he'd seen a bull sell at Perth for 10k - proof that the industry was in good heart. No mention of the rest of the disastrous trade.

A shameless repositioning of the truth , but what else can we expect from politicians?

M-J-G · Oct 13, 2018

Headlines of 50 grand tups doesn't create a good press for the industry.
The public see this as, two years salary for one sheep, and he has thousands of them!
Why are they always crying for money and wanting subsidies.

I take particular exception to these high prices because many of them are false, due to a cheque being handed back to the purchaser for a good proportion of the supposed sale price.

egbert · Oct 13, 2018

Politicians devious?
High price tup sales not all they seem?

hush your mouths!

Cowmangav · Oct 13, 2018

Not many high priced dairy bulls !

cowboysupper · Oct 14, 2018

egbert said:
I'm sure what you say is true enough, but an old pal of mine was negotiating in whitehall the week a blackie tup first crossed £50k. MAFF bigwig stopped the team up short, saying 'how can you be skint when.....etc etc'
I'm sure it didn't make a lot of difference at the end of the day, but it did have to be explained.

Fair point, but those meetings are a game of chess and the officials don’t mind throwing a comment in which will make the farmers they’re meeting more uneasy. The officials have to use official stats to aid their policy decisions. A handful of animals which make 5 figure prices in an industry which slaughters millions of sheep at commercial prices does not have much relevance. Yes, perhaps it briefly influences public perception and maybe gives someone a chance to make some throw away comment, but I doubt that’s ever going to change. If those high value sheep weren’t there would it really have much influence on the public perception of sheep farming or indeed policy decisions?

The sheep industry is in a difficult place because it is one of the highest value proteins for the consumer but at a farmgate level has some of the lowest returns. Throw in the vulnerability which is faced around Brexit and it is difficult to be positive. Unfortunately there is no easy fix to any of this. The best we can hope for is continued free market access to the EU and continued pursuance of new markets for lamb as that is the biggest influence on our returns I feel.

Ysgythan · Oct 14, 2018

egbert said:
I'm sure what you say is true enough, but an old pal of mine was negotiating in whitehall the week a blackie tup first crossed £50k. MAFF bigwig stopped the team up short, saying 'how can you be skint when.....etc etc'
I'm sure it didn't make a lot of difference at the end of the day, but it did have to be explained.

Of course it did. It’s the quality of the response that was key, not the fact the questioned was asked.

CharcoalWally · Oct 14, 2018

Ysgythan said:
Of course it did. It’s the quality of the response that was key, not the fact the questioned was asked.

Communication skills are key.

AftonShepherd · Oct 19, 2018

£160k for the dearest Blackie at Lanark today!

Nithsdale · Oct 19, 2018

AftonShepherd said:
£160k for the dearest Blackie at Lanark today!

F**king crazy when store blackies topped £35 today at Dumfries...

Top Tip. · Oct 19, 2018

AftonShepherd said:
£160k for the dearest Blackie at Lanark today!

It has always been like that,it doesn’t have any real bearing on the price of commercial lambs but what it does is feed the dream. These boys are all in it in the hope that one day they will produce the big priced one. The picture I saw of the lamb I would say he is a good one which has not always been the case in the past.

muleman · Oct 20, 2018

Its good publicity..especially if youre selling them.

Ysgythan · Oct 20, 2018

https://www.facebook.com/372722976911/posts/10156702965986912/

Ysgythan · Oct 20, 2018

Ysgythan said:
https://www.facebook.com/372722976911/posts/10156702965986912/

What do we notice?

Photos of heads only
For a high price lamb you need a high price sire

Woolless · Oct 20, 2018

Ysgythan said:
What do we notice?

Photos of heads only

For a high price lamb you need a high price sire

Head only photo, shows where the priorities lie! Meanwhile in the real world, folk are complaining that Blackie lambs are getting smaller.

Top Tip. · Oct 20, 2018

Woolless said:
Head only photo, shows where the priorities lie! Meanwhile in the real world, folk are complaining that Blackie lambs are getting smaller.

They are getting smaller and the horns are getting bigger making them harder to lamb,so the dearest tups are the smallest with the biggest horns :scratchhead:

Nithsdale · Oct 20, 2018

Woolless said:
Head only photo, shows where the priorities lie! Meanwhile in the real world, folk are complaining that Blackie lambs are getting smaller.

Dad went to a Blackie sale this year. Just for a day out and old times sake. He hasn't been to one in about 16 years.
His verdict was they are scrunty little buggers not worth bidding on these days. Saddened to see how the breed has changed

spark_28 · Oct 20, 2018

wonder what the big sellers think of people recording BF and actually trying to improve the breed like the guy on this Farming Life. cant remember his name

High price rams bad publicity

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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