Ouch - cost of fertiliser has quadrupled

Bosworth

Bosworth

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10 February 2006
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Location
devon
www.ballhillequestrian.co.uk
I went in today to order the fertiliser for my hay fields and came away without ordering any. it has now quadrupled in price. I worked out it will be cheaper for me to buy all my haylage in than to fertlise my fields and make my own. it will cost me approximately £23 a bale to make my haylage - that includes the fertilising, harrowing, rolling cutting, turning, baling and stacking and I can buy it in at £20 a bale. And then someone else worries about the weather, and i have an extra 10 acres that I can graze horses on. Apparantly the uk uses less that 0.7% of the fertiliser in the world - it is all going across to China so we are paying the cost. i have always made my own hay/haylage I have never know it cheaper to buy in. This could have huge cost implications for the coming years feed prices.
 
It may be cheeper to buy in at todays price, but do you not expect that this increase will put the cost of what we pay, along with rising fuel costs, if we also have a yield like last year the cost of haylage and hay could well double.
 
Yikes, more price hikes on the way then, it's a wonder tbh that farmers can produce it at the current prices anyway. Would be nice if this drove some to use less fertilizer though - our yard brought in some gorgeous looking and smelling hay but the horses absolutly wouldn't touch it - turned out the farmer had really upped the fertilizer to try and increase the yield!
 
Ah ha - I have just ngotiated with my farmr friend to buy in my haylage at last years prices! first thing I did when I got back from finding out the price of fertiliser.

As a YO I am going to have to put up the cost of livery this year, I have kept it the same for the past 4 years but as the cost of everything is going up I cannot afford to fund the yard. maintenance, repairs, water, electricity etc. everything has gone up, but mention a possible price rise on the livery bills and the liveries are up in arms.
 
Unfortunately the farmers have to add fertiliser to increase the yield as the past few years have been very poor for hay/haylage and in order to try and keep costs at the lowest it is imperative that the max yield possible is achived.
 
I appreciate that, it is catch 22 really I guess! In an ideal world our yard would have more turnout so that we wouldn't rely on hay to such an extent!
 
We have just invested in a muck spreader to use on our summer grazing paddock, so we can fertilize with our own rotted muck in the autumn and just use the fertilizer in Spring. It is very expensive this year.
 
small bale hay is selling at £5 a bale here and in other parts of the country it is £10 and £12 a bale. I make my own hay and will be doing so again this year,but I wont be making any to sell, I will just put less fert on and get a lighter crop. I think if most farmers reduce their fert application the national crop will be lighter,there will be shortages and the price will go up. £10 may become the norm.
 
Hi Bosworth, just a thought but have you thought of approaching your local farming cooperative as a small holder to benefit from their bulk buying discounts? You would probably need to join and pay a membership, but the savings should outweigh the cost? We are lucky enough to be friendly with a farmer who buys our fertizer in for us at a discounted rate.
 
Bosworth I'm not going to fertilise this year. Instead I will 'drill' grass seed in for richer crop. I graze all my fields over winter so not sure this will apply to you but I'll have the added bonus of better winter grazing. Plan to repeat on a cycle as don't want to reseed due to possible correlation with grass sickness.
 
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