Farmer Roy's Random Thoughts - I never said it was easy.

[hendrebc]

Hopefully you still have processing capacity in 5 weeks time, that's the gamble. One processor here is paying £1.57/kg for M2 bull.

We were just discussing today, the larger freezing works are staying open, but staffing is the issue going forwards.
Their carpark certainly wasn't busting at the seams today.
Smaller processors have just shut the shop, but other essential businesses like fert coops are remaining open, what a clusterfuçk it's going to be.

Fertiliser is about as essential as florists

Typical just as I have a big proportion of my steers ready to go too
Beef will be wanted but how much they will be willing to pay for them is another matter I suspect demand for mince will increase but prime cuts and anything valuable will be in less demand and drag the price down. One good thing the slaughterhouses have been told to stay open to keep stuff moving but it will be their chance to really turn the screws on the price with no competition
Lambs I suspect will be in more trouble as quite a few lamb processing places have closed this week. Maybe staff will be moved to beef plants? At least I won't have any sheep to sell for a while. Might be some culls in may if price improves but I can probably keep them till August September if I need to but things will have to start shifting then. I'll sit on my remaining hoggs. All 10 of them could even eat them myself I'm not going to give them away.

 

[Karliboy]

My mate called me this morning complaining he’d been royally shafted at skipton. They said trade would Ok for lambs and to Drop them off but you can’t stay, so he did. anyway sale starts and he gets a phone call to say trade was sh!te do you want to sell or come collect them ? he said he will go pick them up so he goes back to Get them and turns out the market had f**ked up and sold them at £80 but they will sort them back out from buyers. An hour later still trying to find them all here there and everywhere he give it up as a bad job and let them be gone after giving the market staff a severe verbal shafting.
He’s not a happy bunny to say the least.

 

[Farmer Roy]

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

what a clusterfuçk it's going to be.

Fertiliser is about as essential as florists

Go on, post that in "Agricultural matters", we could all do with a good laugh!

 

[CornishTone]

Then again, it was cold as a witches' nork here this evening, so I broke my own rule and drove across my paddock to pick up fencing gear in the ute. The main reasons being: a cupholder and to use the electric electric fence winder-upper.
Made a hoor of a mess

Don't know how you live with yourself!!!

 

[CornishTone]

@CornishTone


Bundaberg Rum will donate enough ethanol to make 500,000 bottles of hand sanitiser, destined for schools and frontline healthcare workers after stock was wiped out across the state amid coronavirus panic buying.

"We will be stepping up production to make sure that we're able to make this donation for the Queensland State Government" - Bundaberg Rum, Duncan Litter.

More: https://7news.link/2JmUCEt

#coronavirus #7NEWS

https://www.facebook.com/1631255970494381/posts/2723691454584155

Told you so!

 

[CornishTone]

Well the UK lamb trade just collapsed. The price has roughly halved since last week. Cattle prices are well down too.

I wonder if the closure of all restaurants and fast food outlets is involved.....

The fishermen down here are mostly staying in port and watching their livelihoods go down the pan. Their market crashed after Europe went into lock-down and all our restaurants and pubs closed. Most Cornish fish are caught by smaller boats with a fairly short supply chain to higher end retailers or exported to Europe and it's all dried up. Sometimes it's good to not have to deal with the normal commodity market, and sometimes it bites you in the ass I guess.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Go on, post that in "Agricultural matters", we could all do with a good laugh!

Amongst the land-rapists?
No, I won't be doing that.

 

[Agrispeed]

Some chaps I know were giving their catch away in the pub a couple of weeks ago, I don't think they've bothered going out since.

Cull cow price looked quite good last week, I guess a scramble to get whatever they could?

I'm sending a load of cows off this week or next so no doubt the markets will close and the price will tank by then...

 

[Kidds]

My missus was all upset yesterday and said she had lost her job.
For the first time I made her aware I lost mine about a month ago. Nearly all my trade is to cafes and pubs.

 

[Ukjay]

My missus was all upset yesterday and said she had lost her job.
For the first time I made her aware I lost mine about a month ago. Nearly all my trade is to cafes and pubs.

That is a serious bummer, but sadly I fear it is not going to stop there. This is going to hit hard for some considerable time to come afterwards...

Hopefully the government take a hard life lesson from this and make robust changes to our little Islands dependancy...

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

That is a serious bummer, but sadly I fear it is not going to stop there. This is going to hit hard for some considerable time to come afterwards...

Hopefully the government take a hard life lesson from this and make robust changes to our little Islands dependancy...

It would be an utter travesty to go through all this then fail to take advantage of the fantastic opportunity to restructure our society and economy to be more resilient, more caring and environmentally friendly.

Returning to "business as usual" after this would be plain stupid!

 

[colhonk]

plain stupid!

Seems to of been a requirement for some of our leaders in the last few decades.

 

[Kidds]

That is a serious bummer

Thank you all for the sentiments but I’m fine, we both are.
We both have cash and no debts and consider ourselves very fortunate. My customers far less so. Just one of them has had to let 15 staff go and I doubt many of them have cash put away.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Thank you all for the sentiments but I’m fine, we both are.
We both have cash and no debts and consider ourselves very fortunate. My customers far less so. Just one of them has had to let 15 staff go and I doubt many of them have cash put away.

Last week the educational charity I sit on had to lay off all the staff to avoid going under in a few months. Last year we turned over >£250k but last week there was an avalanche of schools canceling trips.

I really feel for the staff.

 

[Karliboy]

It would be an utter travesty to go through all this then fail to take advantage of the fantastic opportunity to restructure our society and economy to be more resilient, more caring and environmentally friendly.

Returning to "business as usual" after this would be plain stupid!

I can’t like this enough.
I’ve been saying this to a few folk around here.
It’s the perfect opportunity for some social and economic reform in all nations. Starting with food and flying in my opinion. There both to cheap.

But no doubt it will all get brushed under the carpet to get the money rolling back in.

 

[Ukjay]

It would be an utter travesty to go through all this then fail to take advantage of the fantastic opportunity to restructure our society and economy to be more resilient, more caring and environmentally friendly.

Returning to "business as usual" after this would be plain stupid!

That is what concerns me more than the current flavour..

If we do not learn real opportunities to become better placed and stronger from this - well pack your bags, coz it will only get worse...

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

Woman rang ABC radio yesterday to say there was up to 40 groups of people in the Hepburn shire (north of Melbourne) going door to door selling solar panels whilst everyone is staying home They were bused up from the city and are saturation cold calling on people....

 

[glasshouse]

Hopefully you still have processing capacity in 5 weeks time, that's the gamble. One processor here is paying £1.57/kg for M2 bull.

We were just discussing today, the larger freezing works are staying open, but staffing is the issue going forwards.
Their carpark certainly wasn't busting at the seams today.
Smaller processors have just shut the shop, but other essential businesses like fert coops are remaining open, what a clusterfuçk it's going to be.

Fertiliser is about as essential as florists

Fert is essential here since its springtime

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Fert is essential here since its springtime

Coffee is essential because it's lunchtime