Moorepark 2019: the blueprint for future expansion

The average amount of milk solids produced per farm has increased by 70% since 2008. Over that time, the rolling three-year average for profitability has doubled from €35,000 per farm before expansion, to €70,000 now. Actual debt levels per kg of milk solids (MS) have actually declined over this period from €3.25/kgMS in 2008 to €2.05/kgMS in 2018.

All of this information was presented at the first board at the Moorepark Open Day. The key message was that the expansion of the dairy industry has been good for farmers and good for rural Ireland.

Padraig French said that only 20% of the agricultural land in Ireland is used for dairy, so there is scope to expand further. But further expansion while remaining sustainable and efficient was the challenge he put to the crowd. This was the key message from the open day.

“The important thing is to know when to stop expanding and not to drift into a high-cost system which will increase debt levels and reduce our sustainability by increasing our environmental footprint. This mistake has been made by other countries,” Padraig said.

He spoke about "growing pains" in the industry with particular reference to dealing with calves in the spring. He said that most farms have invested in milking facilities and cow housing, but that “calf rearing is a pinch point leading to potential welfare challenges as calves have to be sold because there’s not enough facilities to house them leading to a flood of calves on the market".

“Whether the facilities are on your farm, or someone else’s it doesn’t matter once they are there. It's part of our social licence, it’s part of compliance and it also de-stresses the business at a busy time of the year.”

The Irish dairy industry’s environmental footprint came up on every board. Padraig said we’re starting from a good base. He said if the extra 3bn litres of milk was produced anywhere else in the world there would be an extra 4m tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere.

This point was picked up by Brendan Horan on his board. He said Ireland is a leader in Europe when it comes to sustainable food production.

He said that Ireland’s Nitrates Derogation is a recognition from Europe that food produced in Ireland is done so in an environmentally safe way. His board showed the carbon footprint and the nitrogen use efficiency of Irish dairy compared to other European countries.

Carbon footprint

On carbon footprint, he said the single biggest impact on reducing our carbon footprint will be to breed more fertile cows. He said future targets will be to have cows lasting for more than 4.5 lactations on average and to achieve this the EBI of these cows will have to be €200. Seven new practices were outlined;

1 Incorporate clover to increase milk solids by 10%, reduce carbon footprint by 10% and make €150/ha more profit.

2 Use low-emission slurry spreading.

3 Use protected urea.

4 Reduce concentrate feeding and the amount of protein in the concentrate.

5 Protect biodiversity.

6 Reduce energy and water use.

7 Improve water quality.

Brendan said that if all of these measures are implemented, Ireland will meet its climate change mitigation goals and dairy can continue to expand. Asked about the use of plantain or multi-species swards he said that most of the work on these are at “proof of concept” stage, whereas all of the points on the board are proven technologies that work.

So even after the second board, the blueprint for a sustainable future was becoming clear. This was further reinforced at the grass board, where Michael O’Donovan and Michael Egan went into detail on the key driver of Irish dairy – grass.

The age of the sward isn’t important once the soil has been well serviced

“I was buying a secondhand car the other day and the man said to me that the age of the car isn’t important once it’s been well serviced.

"Well the same is true for grass. The age of the sward isn’t important once the soil has been well serviced.

"We see that out on farms the whole time and in the PastureBase data. Maintaining soil fertility is like servicing the car,” O’Donovan said.

Egan went through the roadmap for increased grass utilisation – the driver of the €2,500/ha net profit target. The aim is to grow 16tDM/ha and to utilise 13tDM/ha. This amount of grass, along with 500kg of bought-in meal is sufficient to fully feed a herd of dairy cows stocked at 2.8 cows/ha and to produce 480kgMS/cow.

Genetics

Donagh Berry said that while massive genetic gain has been made, the national herd is still way off meeting the fertility targets. Average six-week calving rate is 75%, while the target is 90%. He said that the EBI sub-index for fertility needs to be at €100 to achieve the targets, it’s currently at around €45. He said that genomics is 16-35% more accurate at selecting bulls than just parental average, but a team of bulls must be used.

“There is still a clear benefit of crossbreeding on most farms, with benefits to fertility and milk solids production per hectare as you can stock them higher,” Donagh said.

Asked about the importance of the maintenance sub-index in EBI, Donagh said that smaller cows are better from an environmental point of view as they eat less grass, but a small cow tends to have a small calf and that’s a problem from a beef perspective.

Stephen outlined the latest results on sexed semen showing that conventional semen has a conception rate of 60%

He said they are currently doing a project to weigh 100,000 cows and calves to see what the link is between cow weight and beef merit of the calves.

Stephen outlined the latest results on sexed semen showing that conventional semen has a conception rate of 60%, while sexed semen has a conception rate of 50%. Despite this difference he said that sexed semen has a role to play.

“On a typical 100-cow herd you would need 25 dairy heifer replacements. If using conventional semen you’d need 83 straws which would leave you with 25 dairy heifers and 25 dairy bulls.

"If using sexed semen, you’d need 56 sexed straws and 27 beef straws giving you 25 dairy heifers, three dairy bulls, because it’s not 100% sexed and 17 beef calves,” Stephen said.

Importantly, he said that the cows used in the study were specifically chosen with good fertility and as well as that the cows in the trial were young cows, calved more than 50 days and in good body condition score.

He said that combining sexed semen with synchronisation on fertile cows will deliver the best results. Asked about the risk of dud sexed semen bulls, he said that the technology has improved and there was no difference in conception rate between the three bulls used in the most recent trials.

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