In 2015, it was well predicted that the dairy herd was going to undergo massive expansion.
Predictions at the time were that the dairy herd would increase by 50% in both stock numbers and output by 2020. Instead this was realised by 2018, with it brought the thorny issue of the increased dairy calves.
It’s certainly true that though not all the challenges of such expansion were properly addressed – water and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions amongst them – for the most part these additional births were heavily focused on meeting the needs of expansion.
That came to a screeching halt last year. After years of increases in the dairy herd of tens of thousands, in 2022 the herd growth fell from 49,300 to only 5,000.
However, more was to come as the dairy herd grew by only 500 additional cows in 2023.
This fall-off does sound great in theory for the beef sector, as it means births will reduce, however the end of expansion means the focus on getting those precious heifers is over too.
Other factors including the National Genotyping Programme helping to identify only the best cows to breed from earlier and a doubling of sexed semen use means a lot more dairy-beef calves hitting the ground in 2024.
This process is already well underway; in the spring calving of 2023, the ratio of dairy-sired calves from dairy cows to beef-sired calves flipped from 3:2 to 1:1 with beef-sired calves ahead by 74,493.
2024 will be the first year all these factors combine; sexed, as a percentage of dairy cow serves in 2023, made up nearly 20%, up from only 3.6% in 2020.
Year Dairy x Dairy Dairy x Beef Ratio 2018 792,141 657,008 3:2 2019 801,181 672,194 3:2 2020 809,181 714,374 3:2 2021 853,917 727,660 3:2 2022 879,760 729,010 3:2 2023 774,551 849,044 1:1
Suckler beef farmers have remained secure in the fact that the dairy bull could never contest their position in the supply chain, worse again if it was a jersey bull.
Dairy-beef
However in herds using all sexed, 75% of the herd is open for using high terminal index bulls.
Continental bulls such as Charolais, Belgian Blue along with shorter gestation Limousin, could soon displace the poor quality Friesians and Jersey.
As even the dairyman’s favour, the Angus breed, has improved its terminal traits without sacrificing gestation length and work on earlier finishing this position will be shaken soon with the best hitting terminal index of 130.
The question now has to be how will the sectors react. As traditional strong Angus prices in marts fall, will dairy farmers seek out better beef quality sires, tightening up serves to focus more on getting heifer calves at the start of breeding before switching to better beef.
Will beef farmers respond by switching from sucklers to calf rearing?
If they make these choices what policy changes will be needed? Will a sector, often ignored in the discussion both by many farm organisations and policy makers, be supported?
Calf rearing
Over the last few years, the challenge has been insuring calf rearers stayed in the market, with 60% leaving within five years of starting rearing.
The signals for dairy calf-to-beef farmers have been extremely mixed.
While the government launching its ‘Ten-Point Action Plan on supporting Dairy Calf- to-Beef’ received some welcome, the Dairy Beef Welfare scheme 2024 was considered a disappointment by many.
With a funding allocation for 2024 of €6.5 million, it’s substantially less than the €46 million paid to suckler farmers under SCEP (Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme) despite more than 1.5 times the number of dairy beef births to suckler births in 2023.
Even worse, this limited but positive support has been undermined by other policy changes such as the decision by Revenue to remove automatic calf feeders from the list of VAT refundable investments.
These are not simply nice add-ons but rather essential investments for the future of what should be a vibrant sector.
Just as 2015 was the start of a new era for dairy, 2024 may be seen as the beginning of a new one for beef farming. The question now is will policy and support keep apace?