The dairy industry as a whole has undergone a significant transformation in the last decade, with milk solids and volume taking a massive journey since the abolition of quotas.
From 2010 to 2023, Tirlán’s milk pool went up 93% from 1.588 billion litres to three billion litres, with their suppliers’ cow numbers going up 72%.
The average area farmed has gone up by 25% with the average milking platform going up 34% in the last 13 years. Milk price in 2010 sat at 32.5c/L and 2023 at 43.72c/L.
Head of milk pool development at Tirlán, Brian Hanafin, spoke on a panel discussion at the Tirlán milk suppliers open day at the Ballyragget plant.
Hanfin talked about the stagnation of new entrants into the industry in the last number of years, but this year, there has been a strong appetite for new entrants.
Hanafin put this stagnation down to milk price, the overhang of the derogation, the high costs of production and the price of land rental.
New entrants
Hanafin told attendees that there has been less greenfield site investments for new entrants, as where most of the new entrants are coming from, is through succession.
“But what we see, is that the scale of new entrants is equally declining”, Hanafin added.
The head of milk pool development spoke about the barriers to expansion for existing suppliers and new entrants, in which he said over the last number of years, “the biggest challenge has been the weather”.
“The cost of borrowing and bank funding has been a challenge, the cost of infrastructure, the cost of concrete, and labour has been a huge issue.
“Obviously, the nitrates derogation is a huge one as it has lessened peoples’ appetite, it has affected sentiment,” he said.
Hanafin also spoke about the lease of land, which is a factor of derogation and said it is costing farmers about 3c/L, which equates to about €90 million per year.
The economic breeding index (EBI) has been improving and husbandry management has gotten better, and now we have the milk solids trackers, which is an online tool to help improve milk solids production/cow.
Milk solids is what drives profits for farmers, it’s how we produce quality milk while lowering our carbon footprint, which is our unique selling point in international terms.
Milk solids
As part of the Gain Momentum Programme, Tirán have launched a new milk solids tracker, which is available for their suppliers to use.
The milk solids tracker provides live specific milk solids data to track performance and highlight to suppliers how milk solids production per cow is trending versus previous year’s performance.
Agriland spoke with Tirlán’s ruminant technical specialist, Bryan Harte, who said “we asked ourselves, what do farmers want? Farmers love talking about milk solids but the information they had, was always a month or six weeks out of date”.
He continued: “When we give that information live, if something goes wrong or solids have fallen, we can take action straight away.
“It allows suppliers to set their targets and monitor their current performance for this year against these targets.”
The milk solids tracker has a traffic light system that will indicate whether you are ion track or not and will highlight when targets are not being met and management practices need to change.
Harte urged that the milk solids tracker will help to improve farm profitability as if it used correctly, it will help increase solids output by optimising your herd’s performance.
Farmers don’t realise that if you are down 60kg of milk solids for the year at €6/kg, that adds up to a loss of €360/cow, which is detrimental to farm profits.
What Harte has found, that when the damage is done in the early lactation, with cow’s not performing well, the milk solids for the year never recovers.
The milk price trackers allows farmers to take corrective action in a timely fashion, at the right times of the year in order to put them on target in achieving their optimal milk solids production.