Today is the day that Moorepark in Fermoy, Co. Cork opens up its gates to all dairy farmers for their 2025 open day, themed 'Irish Dairying – Innovating for the future'.

The dairy industry has been through transformational change in the past 10 years since the abolishment of milk quotas.

Since then, milk solids output has almost doubled as the number of cows drastically increased. However after this period of expansion, since 2022, the dairy industry has entered a consolidation phase.

How to maximise production, grass growth, and grass utilisation while reducing costs and improving our water quality, biodiversity and environmentally sustainability will be showcased.

Moorepark’25 will showcase current and emerging technologies and practices designed to empower farmers to increase their economic, environmental, and social sustainability.

It will also provide attendees with the opportunity to examine the results of the comprehensive, innovative research programme undertaken by Teagasc, and to engage with research, advisory, and education staff.

The start of Moorepark '25 will see farmers exit the carpark and approach the four main boards which are: 'Taking stock- Where to from here?'; The business of dairying; Accelerating genetic gain; and Growing 15 tonnes DM/ha.

Moorepark open day is going to explore how farmers can go about achieving a target growth of 15t dry matter (DM)/ha. The average farmer is currently growing 12t DM/ha and experts at the open day will encourage farmers to refocus on grass utilisation and cost control.

Boosting grass growth can be done through a number of measures, including soil fertility, grazing management targets, effective nitrogen input, and clover incorporation and reseeding.

The open day will also discuss the business of farming to maintain financial competitiveness, with the aim of preparing the next generation of dairy farmers and reducing the workload on farms.

There will also be discussions around the latest updates on the Economic Breeding Index (EBI), beef-on-dairy breeding, and the future of sexed semen in the industry.

Farmers should analyse the map below to see where they will be accessing the car park, where they will be setting off from, and to highlight what stands they want to visit and explore.

From there, farmers will approach the first village, which is the Grass10 - Grazing Demo on their left, followed by the Business of Farming village beside the food zone and toilets on the right.

As farmers walk anti-clockwise around the field, they will pass through all the different villages, demonstrations, and various businesses, which will eventually lead them back to the car park where they initially set off from.

The different areas set up for the open day include:

Grass10 – Grazing Demo;
Business of Farming;
Grassland village;
Infrastructure village;
Breeding and Infrastructure village;
Dairy-beef village;
One Health, One Welfare village;
Working Effectively village;
Environment village.

There will be demonstrations taking place throughout the day on grazing management, reseeding, low emission slurry spreading, fertiliser type, white clover swards, and the calibration of fertiliser spreaders.

Other demonstrations available will be on farm infrastructure, manure storage options, body condition scoring, milk quality, calf rearing, genetics, and health and safety.

A panel discussion will kick off at 3:00p.m, which will cover the current global trading scenario, policy implications for the future direction of the industry, and the key role of innovation in developing solutions for the challenges that lie ahead.