Times seem 'very bad on the land'

Cavanman's Diary

I recently stumbled again across a fascinating YouTube video entitled ‘Farming in County Monaghan, 1985’. The weather was almost biblically wet that year, resulting in what, for some farmers, was a catastrophic shortage of fodder right through to 1986, when the rain continued and, this newspaper reported, in some places, stock was housed for nine months.

By coincidence, I was talking to another farmer later that day and he casually mentioned the dread phrase: “fodder crisis”.

We are, he informed me, heading for another one, this time again weather-related. While it has been wet at times, the main problem has been the low temperatures, which have led to poor growth. June was particularly cold and many farmers, particularly those who are heavily stocked, have been eating into their reserves (or, to be clear, their animals have) due to the lack of grass.

Of course, this is nothing new. This existential threat – the spectre of simply being unable to feed the animals under your care - seems to have always hung over farmers in this region, as that Monaghan video depicts. It must be extremely stressful.

As an exercise, I looked through the archives of this newspaper to get a picture. As far back as 1918, there were pieces published warning of the grave situation that was at hand.

2018 was the most recent, and most serious, example. There were weekly stories on these pages for months documenting the hardship farmers were under.

In September of that year, then-MEP Matt Carthy was quoted as saying “we are in a unique situation in Ireland whereby we are now witnessing a fodder crisis that has lasted a full year”.

As far back as the previous November, round bales were fetching €40 each (for context, seven years on, they can be bought for as ‘little’ as €30).

And, before that, 2012 had been a complete wash-out, with some men I know of a certain vintage adamant that it was actually worse than ’85 and ’86. For one thing, there were a hell of a lot more animals to be fed in rural Cavan in 2012; for another, machinery and work practices had improved (on some farms – more of this later). Following the 2012 disaster, in July 2013, the Cavan IFA Livestock chairman spoke of "one of the most difficult fodder crises in living memory”.

In ’85, the year the aforementioned video was shot, almost everybody was still making hay and they needed consecutive dry days to complete that process. Those days were very scarce. Some grass that was cut rotted in the fields; other farmers were reduced to piling it in the corner in improvised pits of sorts, using old-school two-wheel drive tractors and buck rakes. (Today, such a situation would be prohibited due to effluent run-off and various other regulations).

One man I know speaks of adding salt to the salvaged grass to try to keep it fresh. The cattle loved it, he says, “but were never out of the drain” due to thirst. “A woeful year, an awful time,” he told me.

It’s a familiar, miserable refrain, as my glance through back issues of the Celt showed.

In 1998, the then-chairman of Cavan county council, Clifford Kelly, told a meeting of elected members that there was a currently a crisis in the agricultural sector in the county.

He gave priority to a motion from Cllr Sean Smith who called on the Minister to give financial assistance to farmers to compensate them for the loss of fodder due to bad weather. They even called on the minister to visit Cavan and see the situation on the ground.

Mr AJ O’Brien, it was reported, said that, due to bad weather and poor prices, “the times were very bad on the land”.

As far back as February, 1951, the Swanlinbar local notes correspondent recorded: “Farmers are badly hit owing to the acute fodder shortage and fears entertained for stock, especially sheep on the mountains unless there is early improvements in the weather.”

The 1985 video paints a very grim picture, with the primitive work practices of the time leaving farmers particularly susceptible to very bad weather. One man sombrely told the reporter that he was feeding an extra 6lb or 8lb of meal per day.

It seems, from the video, contemporaneous newspaper reports and anecdotal evidence from those I have spoken to, that a deep gloom had set in – and no better men (and they were almost all men) than the farmers to buy into that, it must be said.

(As an example, by late August of that year, an apocalyptic piece of reportage here noted that the swallows had made an early exit and were not to be seen and the corncrake hadn’t been heard at all that year.)

And yet, there always seem to be those who get through it alright. One youngish man in the video had 41 cows and got a first cut done on May 20 and the other two at six-week intervals. He doubled the meal, opened up his silage reserves in August and the numbers – the weights, the time of day, the yield – rolled off his tongue.

“Apart from a bit of extra work with the cows inside for a couple of extra months, we didn’t have that many problems,” he comments.

“And did you maintain your lactation, your yield?” asks the reporter.

“Aye, we increased it slightly, as a matter of fact.”

There’s a lesson in that, too, especially given all the talk about climate change. While it’s crude to say there are bad farmers and good ones, there are certainly more progressive ones and others who, if we’re honest, probably haven’t changed how they go about their business all that much since that disaster of almost 40 years ago.

Then again, that, too, was always the way. Last word to the local correspondent from Bawnboy, who had this to say in the summer of 1952, after the horrors of the ’51 shortage had abated.

“During the fodder crisis of May, 1951, a local farmer refused an offer of £20 for a springing heifer, which had a white-headed calf,” the unnamed writer noted.

“The calf-bullock was sold two weeks ago for £30 and, at Ballyconnell fair, the cow, now springing again, fetched £38.”

That man knew what he was doing and made it work, despite the most pressing circumstances.

Times, as the politician said, always seem to be very bad on the land. But not for all. Figuring out why that is is not difficult but fixing the problem will remain a challenge.