Greenfield Farm: where to now?

It’s fair to say you could ask every dairy farmer in the country what they think of the Greenfield Farm in Kilkenny and you would get a different view.

Some are utterly opposed to 300 crossbred cows walking around producing milk solids from grass. Some think the cows should be under a roof every day of the year or at least for four months.

Some think the farm has been an unmitigated disaster. Some think it was the best project ever to be established. Has there ever been a project or farm that created such discussion and such debate?

During the week, when news broke that Glanbia wants to pull out of the farm, and stop the project, there has been lots of reaction in print, person and social media.

Back to the start

Some farmers were going back to the days at the start, 10 years ago, when it was said Glanbia was starting up the farm to show farmers how to produce milk at 14c/l. The fact of the matter is the farm never produced milk (all costs) at less than 30c/l. These same farmers now say Glanbia is throwing in the towel as the real figures are out.

Some farmers wrote during the week they think the closure is an admission that the system (a Holstein Jersey crossbred producing milk from grass) doesn’t work. If that’s their view, that’s fine, and they have every opportunity to come to the farm and debate this with numbers, facts and the reality.

I hear talk that the system farmers should now be adopting has changed from when Greenfield was originally set up. Future-proofing the sector and efficiency are fundamental to Greenfield – that hasn’t changed.

Down through the years, the Greenfield Farm has established facts and information that formed the basis of discussion – cow type, grass varieties, costs, housing challenges, and labour issues.

It is fair to say it also formed the basis of plenty of pub talk of supposed shareholder unrest, animal welfare questions and even at one stage bank foreclosure.

Reportedly Glanbia now wants to put a focus on labour, sustainability, and the environment in other projects. If that’s the reason, they have every right to do this.

Precedent

It does, however, set a dangerous precedent for the industry – walking away with five years left on a land lease. It wouldn’t instil confidence to those investing on leased land.

However, I believe the Greenfield Farm is well set up to answer any new questions or challenges.

Emissions

Firstly, it’s the only farm in Ireland I know that has grass varieties and clover performing excellently over a sustained period of time – a key requirement and tool for answering reduced emissions from livestock questions.

Some question the plant and species biodiversity, so let the farm answer that.

Secondly, it’s the only farm in Ireland I know that has a transparent set of accounts fully costed available to all farmers to establish the real costs of producing milk. Financial sustainability will decide the future growth and stability fo the sector.

It is an ideal farm to scope out and research improving calf value – using sexing technologies, higher AI beef index sires, etc, at farm scale.

All four of these issues I believe are critical issues for the dairy industry in the next five years

This year, over 200 sexed straws have been inseminated. Good or bad farm scale impact is measurable. It is an ideal farm to measure labour efficiency and new LEAN farm technologies.

All four of these issues I believe are critical issues for the dairy industry in the next five years. All four are up and going on the farm right now. It would be a travesty to lose the answers to these questions on what exactly is achievable after all the effort over the last 10 years.

Three cohorts of dairy farmers have been in and out of the farm regularly over the last decade.

Established dairy farmers, looking to benchmark what they have at home with a start-up business, have the opportunity to see the performance and management of the large-scale herd.

Entrants

Another group are relatively newly established farmers or expanding farmers who are now milking 100 to 300 cows – I call them the old new entrants. Most started milking cows between 2010 and 2016.

Some of these farmers have been meeting monthly on the farm to put forward their views, listen, learn, watch, etc, as the farm has developed.

It works both ways – they give advice to farm staff about what they see and listen about what is happening on the farm. They won’t always agree with what happens but they know they are getting information that is not clouded in commercial sensitivities or hidden agendas.

Greenfield Farm makes them question where they need to invest money in the early years of a new dairy business

The other group regularly attending the farm are new entrants and students that are thinking about getting into milk. They often come with the traditional or conventional view that you need lots of concrete, big sheds, huge machinery, and very big cows.

If nothing else, the Greenfield Farm makes them question where they need to invest money in the early years of a new dairy business.

On average over the last 10 years, over 5,000 people per year have walked through the Greenfield gates. Over 40 farmers or aspiring dairy farmers attended the farm from all over Ireland on Friday. They looked, listened, learned and had the opportunity to ask questions of the farm staff and Teagasc personnel in a great teaching facility.

It is difficult to see how walking away from such a project is in the best interests of milk suppliers.

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