Keeping a simple system for management of the dairy herd is key to profitability and future success.

Joe Patton, a dairy research officer with Teagasc, specialising in winter milk production, speaking at Fermanagh Grassland Club’s October meeting, took the subject of his talk as “Where to for Irish dairy farms post quota.” He told farmers that dairy farms in the Republic were counting the days for abolition of quota because the situation on many farms was serious with over quota being handled in different ways. Some farmers were drying cows off, others were culling low production cows and others were paying superlevy, spread over a number of years.

He said the Teagasc buzzword at present was “Resilient Dairy Systems.

Looking back over recent trends Joe said that the Republic of Ireland had lost 30 per cent of their cow numbers since 1996, replaced by sucklers. In the same time, Northern Ireland cow numbers had not changed at all yet milk production had increased by 38 per cent with significant increase in milk yields.

However the Republic’s post quota expansion plans allow for a 50 per cent increase in production from five billion litres to 7.5 billion litres with the 17,000 existing dairy units accommodating most of the increase in milk production and 25 per cent of the extra milk coming from investor farms where farmers, instead of increasing their existing farm by stacking more cows on the same area, take on a second unit elsewhere.

The extra production of around 2.4 billion litres would account for an extra 3,000-4,000 extra cows.

Some beef farms had already converted to dairying such as a Co. Louth 1,000 head beef farm, converting to 400 dairy cows but with low capital cost investment. He said the top dairy herds were showing a gross margin of 12-13 cents per litre and there were inefficient farms showing losses because of a high costs structure.

“Farmers who have it technically will cream it,” said Joe explaining how good management systems in place will produce higher gross margins. He said the average margins on some farms were 1700 euros per hectare in 2013 with the top 10 per cent showing 2,700 euros profit. There was a difference of 2,000 euros per hectare between the best and worst farms.

He asked: “Why are we so obsessed with yield?” He looked at technical aspects such as milk yield per cow, concentrate input per cow, milk solids content, stocking rate, calving interval, milk from forage and feed efficiency. On the financial side, there was gross output per litre, cost per litre and gross output per hectare.

Feeding costs were the largest category and showed the greatest variation between farms.

“Yield does not reduce other costs. High solid herds have higher profits rather than driving yields per cow.

He said increasing solids was an easier option at little or no cost - just change the bulls! Low protein stock bulls were the source of the problems, he maintained.

He said the principles for a management system should be the same for grazing as it was for indoors. and more emphasis on calving and fertility. At Johnstown, 50 per cent of the cows had calved in 20 days and 100 per cent by 70 days with a target of a 370-day calaving interval.

“Calving all year round is not a system - it is not being able to change,” he commented.

He also illustrated how 64 per cent of high fertility cows reached their fourth lactation while only 29 per cent of low fertility herds did so.

He said efficiency changes make the difference such as selecting the right cow with the high solids, having efficent spring calving, having a minimum number of non-milking stock, improving grass quality and silage, making progress at grazing, having a better understanding of nutrition and having control of costs and a budget.

Answering questions, he was asked if increased production would lead to bursting the bubble of dairy prices.

Joe replied that some farm budgets were set for milk prices of 30 cents a litre. If there was a problem in the future, it would affect the inefficient producers. However he said while there might be an extra two billion litres of milk produced in Ireland over the next few years, that was minimal at a world scale. He said problems would affect smaller scale farmers who had spent considerably on steel and concrete.

“You don’t need to be complicated with your feed systems. He suggested good quality silage with eight kilos of meal in winter or good grass with one kilo of meal in summer was the basis of a simple system.