Farmers can improve their agricultural production with less effort, says Jim Freeburn, Head of Beef and Sheep Development Branch at CAFRE.

Jim, speaking to Fermanagh UFU farmers, said he was trying to get farmers to think about looking at systems where they could get more return with less effort such as easier calving bulls with good growth rates and maybe looking at working together with other farmers to market their produce.

During his presentation, Jim covering many topics including grassland management and the need for more liming of fields to improve the ph of soils.

“There has been very little use of lime and that has had consequences. Of those who have carried out soil analysis, 40 per cent of farms have a ph of less than 6,” he revealed.

He also said how only 17 per cent of farms had the optimum conditions of P and K for growing grass effectively.

He encouraged farmers to look at BovIS (Bovine Information System) on the DARD website which they can access through their APHIS herd system. BovIS is an online tool for dairy and beef farmers consisting of carcase benchmarking developed by AFBI to provide beef producers with a facility to view, analyse and rank the performance of slaughtered animals which have passed through Northern Ireland abattoirs. It also has a bovine growth rate calculator also developed by AFBI to provide beef and dairy producers with a facility to quickly and easily evaluate the growth performance of cattle within their herd.

Jim said he did not share in the doom and gloom in the beef industry especially as beef and sheep meat was single largest sector contributing £1.2 bn to the Northern Ireland Food and Drink revenue. He said for farmers to achieve top earnings, they must be aware of their performance and costs. From benchmarking figures, the top 25 per cent can produce efficiently without the Single Farm Payment.

He explained to farmers how the Northern Ireland beef sector had the highest area based payment of all UK regions and thus had greater vulnerability to changes to the SFP.

In the last five years, the average sheep flock had reduced from 126 to 106 ewes, the average suckler herd had reduced from 19 to 16 cows.

From benchmarking figures, the difference between the top 25 per cent and bottom 25 per cent was £547 per hectare for beef finishing, £69 per ewe for lowland ewes and £593 per cow net margin for suckler beef production.

Fixed costs were high with 24 per cent for machinery running costs and the same for machinery depreciation. Contractor charges, conacre and business costs each were 11 per cent.

Of all the red meat produced in Northern Ireland, 18 per cent was consumed within the Province with 60 per cent exported to Great Britain, a further 12.5 per cent exported to the rest of Europe and 9.5 per cent exported to the Republic of Ireland.

He revealed to the farmers how a working group comprising the LMC, NBA, NSA, LMC, NIMEA as well as CAFRE’s 89-hectare lowland unit and 36-hectare organic unit were focusing on grassland management, herd and flock fertility and herd and flock efficiency. Further work is envisaged to look at the impact of greenhouse gas on red meat production.

Jim also looked at the benefits of reseeding. He illustrated min till reseeding methods where grass is sown after just power harrowing and the use of a Guttler as well as maintaining swards with high clover content.

On grassland management, he said thoughts should be turning to putting cattle out to grass earlier and managing grass covers.

Jim Freeburn was returning to the Enniskillen Campus of CAFRE more than 20 years after he left there as a lecturer in beef and sheep. He worked at the Campus between 1986 and 1991.