The vagaries of the weather have combined, yet again, to frustrate the best efforts of every Irish farmer.
One of the driest Februarys on record has been followed by, possibly, the wettest March in living memory.
I was in Co. Cork last week. Some of the showers I drove through were of a biblical nature. And, according to the latest weather forecast, there’s more rain on the way.
Working with the weather
It’s not often that tillage farmers are left to confront a challenging autumn- and spring-planting period within the same growing season. But this is fast turning out to be the way of things for growers in 2022/2023.
Spring barley remains a home-grown grain option on many of our farms. But with each day that passes and no seed in the ground, the knock-on effect for the final yields obtained becomes more than appreciable.
Meanwhile livestock farmers can only wait for ground conditions to improve before they let their stock out.
And, of course, all of this is adding real cost to farming operations right across Ireland. Silage stocks within many businesses will soon be running low.
And the question then becomes – where can we get the additional forage that we need to get us over the hump? Or is it a case of buying more meal?
Fertiliser
Some farmers may have managed to get some fertiliser out before the heavy rains came. But where is it today? In many cases, the grass swards and crops on to which it was spread may never have gotten the chance to utilise it.
All farmers understand that they have to work with the weather. It is a true force of nature. For the most part it plays ball. But there are occasions when it can take on a totally unseasonal perspective.
But I would dare to suggest that the vast majority of consumers out there don’t get this story. They want their supermarket shelves stacked high with food every day of the week.
It’s only when the food stops appearing in such a free-flowing manner that they start to ask questions and, possibly, become more appreciative of the work farmers do on their behalf – every day of the year.
For their part, farmers are in the food production business. They enjoy a symbiotic relationship with consumers.
But we live in a world where the average person is totally divorced from the day-to-day developments taking place on our farms.
And this is why it is so important for our farming organisations to keep pushing that message out there.
If we, as an industry, don’t take the opportunity to tell the good news stories taking place within local agriculture on a daily basis, no one else will.