The dairy industry is currently facing into a “pinch period” as the dry spell trundles on, with co-ops and processors focusing on getting the necessary feed to farmers in a timely manner, according to the director of Dairy Industry Ireland, Conor Mulvihill.

“I suppose from our perspective, obviously milk returns are low; but that is the most minor aspect.

“We’re doing conference calls with the CEOs, particularly with our agribusiness leads at the moment,” Mulvihill explained.

Animal welfare; farmer stress

“The main issue is animal welfare, farmer stress – because a lot of them are worried about their animals – so we’re trying to put in systems to get the feed out to them, and obviously a lot of the processors from my membership would have significant elements to their agribusiness so they’re doing a lot.

The long and the short of it is processors are losing money at present; they’re bringing imports in to try and augment what is now a pinch period in the drought.

Following approximately six weeks of drought conditions, with rain now being forecast, the director of Dairy Industry Ireland explained: “Now we’re at a pinch period in between the next batch of grain and, let’s say, an opportunity coming into August hopefully for farmers to do second-cut silage etc.

“So at present they’re looking for feed ration from across Europe, obviously from our friends in the UK who are also suffering drought.”

Keen not to overplay the work being done by Dairy Industry Ireland, Mulvihill acknowledged the work being put in by the Department of Agriculture and Teagasc, noting the advice being given to farmers.

He added: “I know Minister Creed is doing a lot of work with the fodder forum, so we don’t want to interfere with that.

“And we know that our colleagues in the farm organisations, the IFA and the ICMSA, are doing Trojan work at farmer level and things like that.

“So we don’t want to complicate that; what we want to do is focus where we can help farmer members and the vast majority of our primary processors, our co-ops themselves. Executives there are very cognisant that the farmer owners are the ones that are suffering,” Mulvihill said.

Co-ops actively importing

On the topic of fodder imports, he said: “It’s happening as we speak; it’s actually happening right now in terms of co-ops and processors and co-ops and their agribusiness elements importing extra feed and ration.

There hasn’t been a shortage of that, to be blunt; it’s to try and get it out to farmers in a timely manner is the key now.

“We have to look out at our supply chains now that we’ve had a drought in the summer and we’ve had a very bad spring – essentially a confluence of weather events in the last – it’s unheard of in the last half-century.

“It means that we’d be under pressure as an industry into the back end of the year.

“We’re at a stage now where first cuts of silage are actually being used in July which happens – droughts happen – but at the same time we have to be ready – what is the long-term implication of these feed stocks?

“So we know there’s a lot of assessment at supply-chain level of the primary processor companies in terms of how they’re going to get through winter and beyond it in terms of a bit of scenario planning and trying to look ahead.”

Blame on dairy expansion

On the topic of blame from some quarters being aimed at dairy expansion for the likely feed shortage looming, Mulvihill rejected this, saying the figures don’t support such claims.

“Yes there is an issue at present and we’re very cognisant in the dairy industry in terms of the dairy expansion that has occurred since the end of quotas – and that was planned and mapped a long time – and no one could ever have envisaged the year we’ve had thus far.

While acknowledging that there’s work to be done and work being done in the area of emissions and environmental sustainability, Mulvihill felt that some commentators were taking things too far: “To conflate and correlate a single incident with an overall climatic change and global warming, that’s not science.

“That doesn’t help what we have at the moment in terms of a remedial issue in terms of animal welfare and farmer welfare; that’s what we have at the moment and that’s what we’re trying to solve.

That doesn’t mean we put our heads in the sand about climate change and where Ireland is and what challenges we have and what we have to do to address before things are late; but, at the same time, really the focus from our perspective is on those two issues: animal welfare and farmer welfare.

“We’ve been in touch with the department a lot over the course of the last four or five weeks.

3 major challenges

Concluding the interview with AgriLand, the director of Dairy Industry Ireland summed up the three major challenges now facing the industry:

“Number one, there’s action that needs to be taken in terms of financing and credit for example, that’s a given that that will be done.

“Number two is the logistical challenges to address what is now a pinch-point; and number three is what are we doing long term – not just in supply chain, using lessons from this in terms of what we kind of do in strategy around climate change etc.

“And even have an honest conversation with ourselves around what happens the next time this might occur – about stocking densities and can farms cope with what they have; and those conversations in fairness are going on,” Mulvihill concluded.