The government is “committed” to maintaining the nitrates derogation past 2025, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, told the National Dairy Conference today, (Wednesday, November 29).
Speaking at the National Dairy Conference in Co. Kilkenny, Minister Charlie McConalogue, said that 2023 had been a challenging year for dairy farmers because of the reduction in farm incomes, labour shortages, and the uncertainty of compliance with requirement around nitrates.
Minister McConalogue said dairy farmers also had to contend with a reduction in milk production in 2023, because of challenging weather conditions and lower milk prices.
However, despite the issues facing agriculture, he believes that Ireland can and must continue to produce the same level of dairy products into the future.
“I will do everything, I can to back the sector in achieving this.
“But to achieve this, there are challenges that we all must work together to address,” he warned.
Nitrates derogation
The key challenges referenced by the minister today included the issue of Ireland’s nitrates derogation past 2025, emission reduction targets, welfare issues around male dairy calves, and the drive to increase exports to increase farm sustainability.
Minister McConalogue stressed that the government is committed to retaining the nitrates derogation beyond 2025.
He also highlighted that in order to secure a nitrates derogation, the Irish dairy sector needs stable water quality, and that this must be a major focus for the sector in the future.
The minister said that many new measures to improve water quality have already been adopted by farmers and work is continuing in this area.
According to Minister McConalogue “the Irish dairy industry” remains one of Ireland’s big success stories.
“The dairy industry is one of the largest and most profitable industries and the single largest sector in the food industry – supporting over 60,000 rural jobs.
“Irish dairy is now one of the largest and most profitable indigenous industries, producing 8.8 billion litres of – milk and dairy exports came to the value of €7 billion in 2022,” he added.
The minister said that the industry must now focus its efforts “on moving up the value chain” to better insulate the sector against price volatility.
He is confident that the Irish dairy has a solid foundation for “further value growth”.
National Dairy Conference
The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Adapting to a changing dairy farming environment’.
The conference will feature a range of practical workshops where attendees can meet and interact with researchers, advisors and dairy farmers.
Key issues to be discussed include grazing and nitrogen strategies, future farm stocking rate decisions, nutrient management technologies, and the potential benefits of flexible milking schedules.
Milk production
David Beca from Red Sky Agri Consulting, Australia, examined the primary drivers of productivity and profitability in grazing systems during one of the morning sessions at the conference today.
He urged farmers to use the “whole farm approach” to analyse the best options for their farm and also to understand which ratios “correlate with profit” and closely monitor these.
According to Beca dairy farmers should “always focus” on pasture harvest as the primary driver of proft.
Earlier this week Teagasc published a new report which outlined that the outlook for dairy farmers in 2024 is likely to be more positive than this year, with predicted incomes expected to return to move normal level of €1,477/ha.