The term sustainability is commonly used in Irish agriculture, but to achieve sustainability we must achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability.

The Teagasc Moorepark Dairy Open Day 2021 begins today Tuesday (September 14), with the event due to be held over three days this year, with this year’s theme – delivering sustainability.

A report entitled: ‘Delivering on Sustainability’ by Laurence Shalloo a researcher, with Teagasc, looked at how the dairy sector has evolved over the past 10 years and what the future might hold.

Delivering on sustainability

The Irish dairy sector has gone through a major transformation in recent years; in the last 10 years the sector has experienced a 77% increase in milk output from a 43% increase in cow numbers according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

This rapid expansion is now stabilising at farm level and further growth within the sector is expected to be more stable.

Shalloo highlighted that the next phase for the dairy industry will be dependent on policy change.

According to Shalloo, in order to evaluate an industry’s performance, it is important to look at its overall sustainability, with three key areas of sustainability focused on: Economic, social and environmental.

In his report, Shalloo focused on social sustainability which includes cow and calf welfare.

Social sustainability

Cow welfare

Starting with cow welfare, Shalloo highlighted that Irish dairy cows spend on average 71% of their time at grass and are managed on farms with low stocking rates (<2.1 livestock units (LU)/ha) with relatively low milk yield/cow.

With average milk yields of 430kg of milk solids (ms)/cow, Ireland has one of the lowest milk yields in Europe.

According to Shalloo, the key animal welfare considerations are around lameness and somatic cell count (SCC).

Shalloo highlighted data from Animal Health Ireland (AHI), which shows a decrease over the last 10 years, with the national average SCC of 175,000cells/ml.

Cow locomotion and lameness were also highlighted as key cow welfare considerations on farms.

He also noted that the national herd’s average age profile is increasing, with average number of calvings per cow up from 3.3 years in 2014 to 3.6 years in 2020.

Shalloo credits the economic breeding index (EBI) for the improvement made, and says that within the dairy industry as a whole, the key to continued dairy cow welfare improvements will be a focus on farm management, infrastructure and breeding.

CAP Irish agriculture, Taoiseach Teagasc

Calf welfare

Shalloo then focused on calf welfare and highlighted that calf mortality in Ireland is low when compared internationally.

Calf mortality at three months-of-age in the UK was 6.0%, it was 7.8% up to 55 days-of-age in the Netherlands, while the figures from Ireland at 28 days-of-age were 3.6% over the period 2017-2019.

Shalloo stated that there is a need for the dairy sector to embrace technology such as sexed semen and the Dairy Beef Index (DBI), and that there is a real need for a joint strategy between the beef and dairy industry.

This integrated strategy between the dairy and beef sector is needed in order to maximise opportunities for animal welfare, the environment and economics.