Farmers at the mart: ‘We're paying three times more for fertiliser'
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Loading... - Zada Adami
- 25 Mar 2022
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During his 60 years as a full-time farmer, Joe Smiddy met many challenges on the family’s 200-acre farm in Ballymacoda, near Youghal, Co Cork, but always kept the faith, always believing better days would come.
Today, Smiddy is retired from full-time work for the last five years, but still helps his son, Maurice: “I’ve seen all the changes,” he told The Irish Times, during a break in sales at Corrin Mart, near Fermoy, Co Cork this week.
“If someone told me back then we’d be paying €1,000 for a tonne of fertiliser, they’d be locked up. Still, I’d be optimistic; you have to be in farming for the long haul and you have to be patient,” he declared.
Taking a philosophical view, Smiddy, nevertheless, said the price increases now facing farmers are worse than anything he has seen before: “The price of fertiliser is gone crazy; 10:10:20 is over €1,000 a tonne now.
“We’re milking 200 cows, so we’re using a lot of fertilisers. Milk prices are good at the moment so that helps but no way will it make up for the increase in costs because everything is up and up and up and up and up,” he said. Read More...
