Justin McCarthy, the editor and CEO of the Irish Farmers Journal, gave delegates a positive message regarding the future of beef farming at the QMS-organised Sharing Best Practice conference at Airth.
He urged Scottish and Irish beef farmers to work together with a common marketing scheme.
He said it suits certain players in the industry to promote competition between the two countries, but it would be better to pool resources.
“Irish farmers are better at grazing management and Scottish farmers are better at breeding and finishing livestock,” he said.
He is also convinced that the next CAP reform will see a return to coupled payments. “I believe, and it is generally accepted in Europe, that the current payments system is a flawed policy,” he said.
“The US is a cycle ahead of us and its farm bill has just returned to delivering support-based on production.
“I have no doubt that the next CAP will see a return of coupled payments per head of livestock and for tillage.
“Farmers cannot justify CAP payments to the consumer in the present form. Consumers will not accept an area payment; they want to see support targeted to technical efficiency and production, which is easy to understand.”
World population is increasing but the driving factor for increased demand for premium proteins, such as beef, is economic growth.
Farmers have to be prepared for growth in markets outwith Europe, particularly China and India where the number of middle class is forecast to increase by 1.2 billion over the next 20 years.
Food security and climate change will play a more significant role in food production, he said.
“Research has shown the best way to produce more food to keep up with demand, but which also meets food security standards and climate change targets, is through intensive, efficient farming.
“The only way Europe can meet these challenges is to re-couple payments to production.”
He highlighted potential threats to future profitability of beef farming such as weather, food scares and government policies which are out of the farmers’ control.
However, he believes there is plenty which can be done from within the farm gate, such as improving technical efficiency.
The Irish Farmers Journal has done much to help in this field in both Northern and Southern Ireland by setting up the Northern Ireland Suckler Beef Programme, focused solely on improving technical efficiency to get farmers to the £570 per ha gross margin target.
This was followed by the Better Farm beef programme which aims to turn efficiency into profit, and over a three-year period the farms involved in the programme achieved a 125% increase in gross margins.
He admitted one-third of this was due to an increase in the beef price, but felt the other two-thirds was down to technical efficiency.
“Most farmers don’t look as though they are doing anything differently but they are making small improvements in grass management, stocking rates and generally getting more from their farm resources,” he said.
Justin reckons benchmarking is just one leg of a three-legged stool, the other two being a monthly cash-flow plan and a five- year cash-flow plan.
Additional focus on herd health, feeding regimes and doing the simple things right has led to big improvements in the 43 farms in the programmes.