Farmers are looking for a break in the rain to try and bring in the end of the harvest
THERE WAS a consensus among farmers at the Virginia Show in Co Cavan yesterday that this is the worst summer they have experienced.
Dundalk farmer Noel McEnteggart from Barrowstown, Co Louth, said he had been at the mart last week when it started to rain. "I swear to God the raindrops were as big as marbles and they were smashing on the ground. I have never seen rain like this before and I have seen places flooded this year that have never been flooded before," he said.
"We got some let-up in 1985 and 1986 but this is relentless. But I think that it might take up soon. It can't continue like this," he said.
He added that the old people had told him always to look carefully at the first three days in May which indicated what the rest of the summer would be like. That was true of this year and last year.
"However, a lot of people around where I live were lucky enough to get good silage and hay because we had a bit of good weather around the 12th of July and I think there will be plenty of fodder this winter," he said.
Pat Dempsey from Brownstown in Delvin, Co Westmeath, said he remembered the bad winter and harvest of 1947 and while there was a huge delay in getting the harvest this year, the farmers were hopeful of a break.
"It's amazing what can be done in three dry days with modern machinery.
"It's not like the old days when we did not have the equipment. There could well be a break," he said.
But Hugh McConnell, who comes from near Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, was not so sure. He said that farmers in his area had been very badly hit this year and it was not going to be an easy winter for some of them around where he came from.
However, Pat Rayburn, a young beef farmer from near Cootehill, Co Cavan, described himself as "the eternal optimist" because without optimism, he said, no one should go into the farming game.
"I have a suckler herd and I make no hay or silage. I worked it out some years ago that it was far cheaper to buy winter fodder than to harvest it, and I have been doing that quite successfully up to now," he said.
Yesterday morning he went down to Co Kildare to buy hay but found that the quality of the hay on offer is not top class.
"I may have to switch to buying grain and the good news is that the price of it seems to be falling internationally.
"Anyhow, I have the luxury of being able to reduce or increase my stock depending on the fodder situation," he said.
He confirmed an observation of another man, James Walsh, from near Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, who works off farm as a driver, that many people who had won hay earlier this year had lost it by leaving it in the fields which then became flooded.
Pat Rayburn said he too had seen this happen in many parts of the country, but particularly in the northwest, which makes more hay than most other parts of the country.
Carl Gilsenan, who farms near Oldcastle, Co Meath, said he too had never seen such a wet summer and his land and those of his neighbours were flooded in areas never hit before.
"Some people were very unlucky but there is a fair amount of the harvest won. If the grain men get two or three reasonable days, they could get a lot of work done," he said.
Michael Hanly, the chief executive of Lakeland Dairies said milk supplies to the dairy had dropped in August because of the poor weather and some dairy farmers were having a difficult time.
"However, a good September is as good as a good July for the farmer because it can really shorten the winter and the forecast is not as bad as it has been in recent weeks," he said.