Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) dairy chair, Stephen Arthur, believes that animal welfare is the biggest threat to the Irish dairy sector.
Arthur spoke to Agriland on a number of challenges being faced by the Irish dairy sector, and he believes that unless animal welfare issues are dealt with – they have the potential to pull the industry down.
Arthur also spoke to Agriland about affects of the changes to the nitrates regulations and milk prices.
Animal welfare
Issues with animal welfare, particularly related to calves, was also highlighted during the year – with Arthur believing that if this is not dealt with correctly, it could pull the industry down.
He said: “I think that animal welfare is the biggest threat to our dairy industry in this country.
“I think we are on top of the green house gases (GHG), water quality is a big issue – but I think we can work it.
“Animal welfare has the potential to pull it all down, that’s how serious it is.”
Commenting further, Arthur said: “I think there is a responsibility on dairy farmers towards their calves, end of story. We have all seen what happened in Australia and New Zealand, how much damage was done.
“We have a very good reputation here, in how we produce our milk, how we look after our animals – that is what sells out butter all over the world.
“The image of family farms, grazing cows, with good animal welfare standards, we need to protect that.
“If that means a reformation of a calf policy, that enhances the value of calves coming off farms going into the beef industry it has to be done, and I have no apologies for it.”
He noted how dairy farmers are using the breeding tools that are available to reduce the number of low value calves, and increase the genetic potential for the beef industry.
“We have good tools put in place, just look at the growth of sexed semen in the last few years – we are going to have 100,000 less dairy bull calves on the ground this year,” Arthur added.
Arthur said coupled with the use of the dairy beef index (DBI), this should result calves with better beef genetic potential going to marts for sale.
Commenting briefly on the calf exports, Arthur said that we need to ensure that regulations that are brought in for mainland Europe do not impact on Ireland.
He said that proposed changes to regulations would have a significant impact on the trading of calves with Europe: “We cannot be prohibited from selling product into mainland Europe, because we are a trade partner.”
Nitrates
One of the most significant events for the dairy sector in 2023, was the announced in the reduction of the nitrates derogation from 250kg to 220kg is a significant preporation of the country.
Speaking to Agriland, Arthur said that many of the farms most significantly affected by this are the average 80 to 100 cow herds.
“April 2022 we knew this was coming, and I was very disappointed with the department – the letters and the maps should have been out this time last year.”
He said that the lack and delay of information placed a significant strain on dairy farmers, particularly mentally.
“The farms that are being hit the hardest is farms with a small land base, your average dairy farm – more often they are milking higher yielding cows, and they are also being caught with the banding.”
Arthur hopes that some tweaks can be made with farmers using low concentrates and nitrogen (N) value of the calves not counting for the first three months.
He also noted that there was a good number of farmers that were exporting slurry to stay out of derogation, that now due to the banding are now in derogation.
He believes that the applications for derogation could be significantly higher in 2024.
Milk price
Arthur said that 2023 has been a challenging year for dairy farms, with high milk prices in 2022 falling back over 20c/L.
It said that it is a complete opposite to the later half of 2022, when cows were milked on, whereas 2023 saw many parlours fall quite earlier than normal.
Looking ahead for 2024, Arthur said: “The pasture profit index (PPI) is looking positive, and looks like it is going to remain positive going forward, which is a great indicator for us.
“Markets are moving, supply worldwide is down – which is where we need to be for the market to be strong – the first quarter of 2024 looks positive.
“I think we need stability going forward, the troughs are no good – highs and lows kill the business.
“On the same side of the coin we need meal price to align themselves back-up, we need fertiliser to stabilise – there is a lot of cost on farms,” he said.
Arthur believes that these increased cost are really going to be felt this year, due to many farms having poor quality forage in the silage pits.