Joe Sheehy: Winter feed supplies looking fairly positive

This has been a fairly good year for growth and weather conditions in most parts of the country resulting in good supplies of winter feed on farms except in some wet areas. 

This will be very beneficial for farmers going forward because surplus winter feed is very valuable for the following season to prevent what happened in 2012/2013.

At this stage most serious farmers have updated their winter feed budget. Some farmers have made arrangements to buy maize silage, grass silage, fodder beet and other feeds or have sown some rape or kale. Other options are to purchase whole crop wheat or barley or grain from the harvester at about 20%.