Livestock farmers ‘out of touch’

Marts: As the buoyancy in the store cattle trade continues in the marts, livestock farmers are being advised to carefully study the implications of the change in EU support to the singe payment in their farming in 2005.

At the Department of Agriculture meetings on the single payment - which continue around the country this week - Teagasc advisors have claimed many livestock farmers do not yet understand the change - judging by the prices for bought-in cattle.

The stark advice is of the top livestock farmers in a national competition in 2004, only 10% had a reasonable margin without including premium payments and the majority of farmers who are not breeding their own stock are in the high-risk category to end up subsiding their operations from the 2005 single payment.