President's Address

This will be my fifth year as President of the Irish Simmental Cattle Society which is a great honour for me to be elected by the council. I feel that I only chair the council meetings which I am happy to do as it is the council members that make the decisions of the society.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Peadar and Carol for their dedication to their jobs in the office and in organising the smooth running of the society. And Thank You to all the council members who have given 100% to the tasks that came before the society in 2008. There is certainly a great friendship within all the council members and sometimes a good laugh but the decisions made are always for the good of the society and not for any personal gain.

2008 proved to be another difficult year for member to organise classes at shows and breeders to have animals ready in show condition only to have shows cancelled due to all the rain, so we could all do with a heat wave this year.

I don’t want to depress you but the economy of our country has totally changed in the last six months beyond our control but how do I see this effecting breeder’s in the I.S.C.S.? Well we had an excellent sale in Roscommon in November. Heifer’s, commercial and pedigree are still in great demand and I have found that commercial bull calves are becoming more popular with the feed lots as long as we keep the dairy breeds out of them. I do hope the feeding farmers get paid for their work for we depend on them this year.

Breeders should be prepared to slaughter their poorer quality bulls, just because they have a pedigree cert it does not entitle someone to offer you less than beef price. I do know a few breeders that offered bulls at a price to find out that they got more money in the factory and no comeback.

It is also encouraging to see another bull going into AI perhaps they have started to realise that Simmental Cattle are top of the beef breeds for EBV certainly Teagasc advisers are on board but it is up to all of us to keep the message alive when the opportunity arises.

Two highlights of the past year for me would be the World Congress and Beef Expo.

It was nice to take part in the World Congress this year as it was held by the British Simmental Cattle Society and enabled us to renew old friendships and make new ones. On behalf of our members I would like to thank them for the hospitality that they gave us during the field trips and functions that they held. Their breeding cows are so like our own and it was interesting to see how much Irish breeding has been a big influence to their herds.

Beef Expo was an excellent show, professionally organised with breeders showing off tremendous cattle from all over the country. Surely a show like that would have to be held again to promote the cattle that we have here in Ireland.

As president of the society over the last four years I have met and become friends with so many breeders that have a love of breeding Simmental Cattle and I hope to be able to meet up with them in 2009 and I look forward to meeting new breeders.

I wish everyone good health and may all your calves be champions in 2009.

Bertie Houston
President