This year’s Teagasc National Dairy Conference is taking place at the Rochestown Park Hotel, Co. Cork (Tuesday, November 27), and again at the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone, Co. Westmeath (Wednesday, November 28).
‘Making Dairy Farming More Sustainable’ is the theme of the conference. The opportunities for Irish grass fed milk products will be examined with industry speakers giving their perspective of the market.
The speakers from Teagasc will examine the lessons to be learned from coping with the weather extremes in 2018 and how to protect the dairy farm businesses from weather risks.
With increased numbers of offspring coming from the dairy herd in Ireland, Natalie Roadknight, from the University of Melbourne in Australia, will present a paper on ‘Managing all calves to a high-welfare standard: the Australian experience’.
Andrew Cromie from ICBF will present on the new Dairy-Beef Index, while Stephen Butler from Teagasc will talk about the role sexed semen can play in the industry.
A series of workshops will also take place in the afternoon.
- Workshop 1 – Managing our GHG and ammonia emissions targets;
- Workshop 2 – Grassland decisions made easy;
- Workshop 3 – Coping with the spring workload;
- Workshop 4 – Contract heifer rearing;
- Workshop 5 – Building fodder reserves in 2019;
- Workshop 6 – Making our dairy farms better places to work.
Speaking in advance of the Teagasc National Dairy Conference, Dr. Tom O’Dwyer, head of dairy knowledge transfer in Teagasc, said: “As dairy farms develop, there is a need to focus on sustainable practices, in terms of labour management, greenhouse gas emissions, fodder reserves and animal welfare.
“The Teagasc Dairy Conference will present the latest knowledge to help farmers make informed decisions to continue the development of their enterprises in a sustainable way.”
The full conference programme and opportunity to register for the event is available here.