I have listened to a lot of polite conversations recently, involving Teagasc tillage advisors and crop consultants regarding the state of newly established winter drops.
There’s been lots of talk about the damage caused by slugs, leather jackets and standing water in fields.
But it’s time to call a spade a spade: Many crops sown out since the beginning of October have ‘disaster’ written all over them.
Yes, cereal crops planted in September went into tremendous seed beds. But who knows yet how Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) has ravaged them?
What a difference two months can make. This year’s National Ploughing Championships saw representatives from every farming organisation on the planet extolling the virtues of tillage farming and the future prospects of the sector.
And, in principle, they were all right. Meanwhile, the vagaries of the Irish climate have come home to roost.
I know that many cereal growers are looking at rain sodden fields right now and thinking it’s time to start from scratch again come the spring.
But there is one big drawback with this approach: The money involved. It has cost growers a fortune to get winter crops through to this point.
And the very thought of doing it all again, never mind the mad prices that fertiliser will probably be making coming March 2023 would give any human being sleepless nights.
Everyone agrees that there must be a sustainable future crop production in Ireland. It’s not growers’ faults that a perfect storm has hit then over the past number of weeks.
Pressures facing tillage farmers
Cereal prices are very strong at the present time. But so are all input prices. Every cost increase that tillage farmers have to face puts additional pressure cross the sector as a whole.
How often in the past, have we seen one good harvest only to be followed followed by two, and possibly three, very challenging growing years?
But it’s not all lost yet, where the 2022/23 growing year is concerned. The spring planting season beckons.
Last year, farm minister Charlie McConalogue introduced the Tillage Incentive Scheme. But, in truth, the measure only served to encourage grassland farmers into crop production.
But come spring 2023, the minister will have to look seriously at support measures that specifically target the needs of professional tillage farmers.
And he has plenty of targets to aim at: Spring barley, oats, beans, maize and even fodder beet.
But, whatever he comes up with must include specific supports for those farmers who want to re-plant the crop failures of this autumn.