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Beef Focus: Managing rising costs on Fermanagh beef farm
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<blockquote data-quote="Agriland RSS" data-source="post: 8148180" data-attributes="member: 105608"><p>Written by Agriland Team from Agriland</p><p></p><p style="text-align: right"><img src="https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/cdn.agriland.co.uk/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1924-2048x1536-640x360.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p>Managing the rising costs on beef and sheep farms was the central theme of a series of farm walks hosted by the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) this week.</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Agriland </strong></em>travelled to one of these events, on the farm of Stephen Maguire near Maguiresbridge, Co. Fermanagh, on Wednesday, May 18, to find out how the beef farmer is managing his enterprise in times of input price pressures.</p><p></p><p>Stephen is farming 80ac of typical Fermanagh land and in 2021, the farm made a gross margin of £1,546/ha and had a stocking rate of 1.58/cow equivalent (Ce)/ha (livestock units are sometimes referred to as cow equivalents, as was the case here).</p><p></p><p><a href="https://cdn.agriland.ie/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1877-scaled.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://cdn.agriland.ie/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1877-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></p><p>Stephen Maguire speaking at the farm walk on Wednesday</p><p></p><p>The farm was previously a 60-cow suckler herd with all progeny sold as stores and bull beef, but in 2019 the sucklers were dispersed and the farm transitioned to a <a href="https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/rearing-600-calves-on-contract-and-operating-a-beef-finishing-enterprise-in-the-uk/" target="_blank">Blade</a> cattle-rearing system.</p><p></p><p>Speaking at the CAFRE event on his beef farm, Stephen said: “Basically, everything I’m doing now is on a contract basis. I do a small bit of contract dairy heifer-rearing as well.”</p><p></p><p>Stephen’s ethos is: “I try to keep everything simple on the farm and make the best use of what we have.”</p><p></p><p>The land was all drained in the 1980s and in recent years, Stephen has done a good bit of work on reseeding and maximising grass growth.</p><p></p><p>He believes the key to keeping <strong>costs under control </strong>is to grow and utilise as much grass as cheaply as possible. The farm is however, dissected by a crossroads, and so Stephen admitted: “This can make grazing infrastructure tricky.”</p><p></p><h2>Grazing infrastructure</h2><p></p><p>The farm is laid out in a paddock rotational-grazing system and larger fields are split into smaller areas with both permanent and temporary fences.</p><p></p><p>Most paddocks on the farm range in size from 0.8-1ha and the average stocking rate on the grazing platform is 2.3 livestock units (LU)/ha.</p><p></p><p>The paddocks are rectangular in shape and have multiple access points and water troughs.</p><p></p><p><strong>Some of the grazing infrastructure on the farm:</strong></p><p></p><p><a href="https://cdn.agriland.ie/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1908-scaled.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://cdn.agriland.ie/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1908-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></p><p><a href="https://cdn.agriland.ie/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1911-scaled.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://cdn.agriland.ie/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1911-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></p><p><a href="https://cdn.agriland.ie/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1885-scaled.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://cdn.agriland.ie/uploads/2022/05/IMG_1885-scaled.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></a></p><p></p><p>Stephen’s aim when grazing-out paddocks is: ‘<strong>Grow in three weeks, graze in three days</strong>.’</p><p></p><p>The target pre-grazing cover on the farm is 2,700-3,100kg/dry matter (DM)/ha (9-10cm grass height) and the target post-grazing cover is 1,600kg/DM/ha (4-5cm grass height). The average farm cover on the day of the farm walk was 3042kg/DM/ha.</p><p></p><p>Despite a stocking rate of 2.3LU/ha on the grazing platform, last year, 150 bales were made from surplus grass on the paddocks.</p><p></p><p>The farm has four batches of cattle grazing 20.3ha in a paddock-grazing system. Generally, the average turnout date on the farm is April 9, and cattle are housed in October/November time.</p><p></p><h2>Price hikes</h2><p></p><p>The rise in costs on the farm were broken down using figures from April 2021 compared to April 2022.</p><p></p><p><strong>General price increases:</strong></p><p></p><table style='width: 100%'><tr><th>Price in April 2021</th><th>Price in April 2022</th><th>Increase</th><th></th>