The snow pushed the Irish Grassland Association (IGA) conference into the middle of January and over 200 farmers heard from industry speakers and farmers about what is working, or not, on dairy farms around Ireland.
Cork dairy farmer Joe Deane is working a leased farm business model, with three milking farms on long-term leases, pretty close to one another. A debate around the fairness of returns for the active and the land-owning farmers took up a good portion of the question and answer session.
Joe was of the opinion that without leasing, he probably wouldn’t be milking cows. He and his wife Laoise hope one day to own a farm, but for the moment leasing is how his model works. He has a good manager on each farm and takes on farms that have good facilities and are able to operate a simple cost control-driven, spring-calving system.
He is not pushing milk solids and trying not to complicate the system, to allow for a good work-life balance for everyone. Cows are milked once a day in February and at the back end, and fodder beet grazed in-situ is the feed buffer to help reduce concentrate fed.
A number of farmers questioned what would happen if slurry storage or spending on facilities was necessary and Joe suggested he just wouldn’t take them on. As regards entitlements, he has different arrangements with each land owner. The trade-off on passing back the entitlement value to the land owner is balanced with the price per acre of land leased and the growth potential of the farm. If the price per acre is on the lower end of the range, it allows for different options in how entitlements are structured.
The Deane’s system
The Deanes are leasing three dairy farms and will calve down just shy of 500 cows in total this spring. Joe credits a lot of the success to working with excellent people and he has a full-time person managing each of the leased farms.
Aaron Lyons, Mark Deane and David Walanga are in charge of each farm and Joe feels that stocking rate is key to running these units efficiently.
“I set the farms up at 2.75 to three cows/hectare, growing close to 12t of dry matter per hectare, with a plan to feed between 500kg and 700kg of meal per cow.”
After college in Wales, Joe travelled to New Zealand and this gave him the confidence to do what he is at now.
Growth
IFA dairy executive Áine O’Connell was optimistic in her view for the future of dairy farmers in 2025. She discussed the fact that globally, milk supply is tight and demand remains solid, so the dynamic is good.
“Growth in milk supply is expected to be 0.6% for the year ahead and in the past we wouldn’t be worried unless it was over 2%, so we are in a good place. The US expects growth of 0.35%/year and New Zealand is also capped out on cow numbers, but will probably grow milk per cow.”
Áine talked about improving water quality, so the prospects of extending the derogation have improved.
Teagasc adviser with the Aurivo Joint Programme, John McCabe talked about the key drivers of profit and for him, utilising more grass is key. He said data shows that 500kg to 600kg more grass is utilised on the best farms and that drives an extra 70kg of milk solids per cow.
On feed, John said we really need to focus on better quality for milking cows: “We need to have big, bulky pits of 75 DMD grass silage. Maize is a good feed yes, but I feel what we need is milking cow silage and dry cow silage. A lot of the silage made is 70-72 DMD and is not good enough for milkers. Make more good silage if feeding it to milking cows and two bales per cow is a good measure for what’s required.”
ICBF’s Margaret Kelleher talked about the most recent results of sexed semen usage on farms. It’s the 2023 data that is now backed up by the 2024 calving data. For heifers, it shows pregnancy to sexed semen at first serve of 61%, versus 66% for conventional AI.
For cows, the comparable figures are 50% pregnancy rate for sexed semen versus 57% for conventional.
When challenged from the audience by a farmer who was going to switch to proven bulls only this year she said: “Heifers should be your best on-farm genetics and best fertility, so replacements from heifers should give you the best genetic gain.”
She talked about using a maximum of 15% of any one sire, because if the EBI changes, it limits the damage to the herd. She said the national figure is something like 27% to one bull, so if that bull goes down then it becomes a problem.
Straw sales to breed female replacements in 2021 were 1m and that dropped to 750,000 straws in 2024, as sexed semen usage increased. However, beef AI usage lifted from 380,000 in 2021 to 630,000 in 2024. Margaret suggested that if this trend continues, by 2030 we could see a calf crop with only 3% dairy bull calves, compared to the 20% of dairy bulls that were born in 2024. In 2024, it was 54% dairy-beef calves born from the dairy herd – the first time there wered more beef calves than dairy-bred calves.
Questions and answers at the Grassland Association event
Q: How does Joe handle entitlements when leasing?
A: Joe: all sorts of different ways - some land owners sold them, some we are partly paying back to the land owner, and some land had a clean slate, allowing us establish our own entitlements.
Q: Why are co-ops competing with each other on a global scale and undercutting each other?
Áine: In fairness to the co-ops, they have been focussed on processing capacity, but yes, now I feel there should be better use made of existing facilities. On competing with each other on butter, I just feel inevitably one undercuts the other on price and it’s wrong.
Q: Statement from the floor: Quotas created armchair farmers and now I feel leasing is creating a new cohort of ‘armchair’ farmers. I’m dependent on leased land and I’m not sure what the solution is, but maybe there is some tax piece on the ‘active’ farmer side that should be looked at.
Q: How does Joe control costs when he is not on the farm?
Joe: We set the parameters at the start of the year, yes we pivot through the year depending on weather, etc, but we keep in contact, the purchasing group helps us in terms of getting good prices for inputs.
Q: How does Joe work Cap-ex on leased farms?
Joe: We haven’t had to invest in facilities on farms except in terms of investing in soil fertility and reseeding. We have turned down opportunities if there is too much money to spend on the farm’s facilities.
Q: Is EBI working?
Margaret: Yes stick with EBI, have full faith – use the mart tracker if going to look at calves or cows for sale.
Q: Is the current dairy sector vulnerable given a large proportion of milk produced on leased land?
Joe: I don’t think so – it has provided opportunities for me and our business wouldn’t be where it is now without leased land opportunities.
Margaret Kelleher, ICBF speaking during the Irish Grassland Association Dairy Conference in Charleville, Co Cork. \ Donal O' Leary
John McCabe, Teagasc speaking during the Irish Grassland Association Dairy Conference in Charleville, Co Cork. \ Donal O' Leary
Joe Deane, Cork.
The Deane farms
Farm one: Carrigaline (eight-year lease – just finished).Farm two: Carrigaline (11-year lease).Farm three: Carrigtwohill (10-year lease).Farm four: Michelstown 50;50 with Paul Kingston starting 2025.
Aine O' Connell, IFA Senior Dairy Policy Executive speaking during the Irish Grassland Association Dairy Conference in Charleville, Co Cork. \ Donal O' Leary
IGA summer tour
23rd July: Kevin and Margaret Twomey.Mike and Tina Bermingham.
The snow pushed the Irish Grassland Association (IGA) conference into the middle of January and over 200 farmers heard from industry speakers and farmers about what is working, or not, on dairy farms around Ireland.
Cork dairy farmer Joe Deane is working a leased farm business model, with three milking farms on long-term leases, pretty close to one another. A debate around the fairness of returns for the active and the land-owning farmers took up a good portion of the question and answer session.
Joe was of the opinion that without leasing, he probably wouldn’t be milking cows. He and his wife Laoise hope one day to own a farm, but for the moment leasing is how his model works. He has a good manager on each farm and takes on farms that have good facilities and are able to operate a simple cost control-driven, spring-calving system.
He is not pushing milk solids and trying not to complicate the system, to allow for a good work-life balance for everyone. Cows are milked once a day in February and at the back end, and fodder beet grazed in-situ is the feed buffer to help reduce concentrate fed.
A number of farmers questioned what would happen if slurry storage or spending on facilities was necessary and Joe suggested he just wouldn’t take them on. As regards entitlements, he has different arrangements with each land owner. The trade-off on passing back the entitlement value to the land owner is balanced with the price per acre of land leased and the growth potential of the farm. If the price per acre is on the lower end of the range, it allows for different options in how entitlements are structured.
The Deane’s system
The Deanes are leasing three dairy farms and will calve down just shy of 500 cows in total this spring. Joe credits a lot of the success to working with excellent people and he has a full-time person managing each of the leased farms.
Aaron Lyons, Mark Deane and David Walanga are in charge of each farm and Joe feels that stocking rate is key to running these units efficiently.
“I set the farms up at 2.75 to three cows/hectare, growing close to 12t of dry matter per hectare, with a plan to feed between 500kg and 700kg of meal per cow.”
After college in Wales, Joe travelled to New Zealand and this gave him the confidence to do what he is at now.
Growth
IFA dairy executive Áine O’Connell was optimistic in her view for the future of dairy farmers in 2025. She discussed the fact that globally, milk supply is tight and demand remains solid, so the dynamic is good.
“Growth in milk supply is expected to be 0.6% for the year ahead and in the past we wouldn’t be worried unless it was over 2%, so we are in a good place. The US expects growth of 0.35%/year and New Zealand is also capped out on cow numbers, but will probably grow milk per cow.”
Áine talked about improving water quality, so the prospects of extending the derogation have improved.
Teagasc adviser with the Aurivo Joint Programme, John McCabe talked about the key drivers of profit and for him, utilising more grass is key. He said data shows that 500kg to 600kg more grass is utilised on the best farms and that drives an extra 70kg of milk solids per cow.
On feed, John said we really need to focus on better quality for milking cows: “We need to have big, bulky pits of 75 DMD grass silage. Maize is a good feed yes, but I feel what we need is milking cow silage and dry cow silage. A lot of the silage made is 70-72 DMD and is not good enough for milkers. Make more good silage if feeding it to milking cows and two bales per cow is a good measure for what’s required.”
ICBF’s Margaret Kelleher talked about the most recent results of sexed semen usage on farms. It’s the 2023 data that is now backed up by the 2024 calving data. For heifers, it shows pregnancy to sexed semen at first serve of 61%, versus 66% for conventional AI.
For cows, the comparable figures are 50% pregnancy rate for sexed semen versus 57% for conventional.
When challenged from the audience by a farmer who was going to switch to proven bulls only this year she said: “Heifers should be your best on-farm genetics and best fertility, so replacements from heifers should give you the best genetic gain.”
She talked about using a maximum of 15% of any one sire, because if the EBI changes, it limits the damage to the herd. She said the national figure is something like 27% to one bull, so if that bull goes down then it becomes a problem.
Straw sales to breed female replacements in 2021 were 1m and that dropped to 750,000 straws in 2024, as sexed semen usage increased. However, beef AI usage lifted from 380,000 in 2021 to 630,000 in 2024. Margaret suggested that if this trend continues, by 2030 we could see a calf crop with only 3% dairy bull calves, compared to the 20% of dairy bulls that were born in 2024. In 2024, it was 54% dairy-beef calves born from the dairy herd – the first time there wered more beef calves than dairy-bred calves.
Questions and answers at the Grassland Association event
Q: How does Joe handle entitlements when leasing?
A: Joe: all sorts of different ways - some land owners sold them, some we are partly paying back to the land owner, and some land had a clean slate, allowing us establish our own entitlements.
Q: Why are co-ops competing with each other on a global scale and undercutting each other?
Áine: In fairness to the co-ops, they have been focussed on processing capacity, but yes, now I feel there should be better use made of existing facilities. On competing with each other on butter, I just feel inevitably one undercuts the other on price and it’s wrong.
Q: Statement from the floor: Quotas created armchair farmers and now I feel leasing is creating a new cohort of ‘armchair’ farmers. I’m dependent on leased land and I’m not sure what the solution is, but maybe there is some tax piece on the ‘active’ farmer side that should be looked at.
Q: How does Joe control costs when he is not on the farm?
Joe: We set the parameters at the start of the year, yes we pivot through the year depending on weather, etc, but we keep in contact, the purchasing group helps us in terms of getting good prices for inputs.
Q: How does Joe work Cap-ex on leased farms?
Joe: We haven’t had to invest in facilities on farms except in terms of investing in soil fertility and reseeding. We have turned down opportunities if there is too much money to spend on the farm’s facilities.
Q: Is EBI working?
Margaret: Yes stick with EBI, have full faith – use the mart tracker if going to look at calves or cows for sale.
Q: Is the current dairy sector vulnerable given a large proportion of milk produced on leased land?
Joe: I don’t think so – it has provided opportunities for me and our business wouldn’t be where it is now without leased land opportunities.
Margaret Kelleher, ICBF speaking during the Irish Grassland Association Dairy Conference in Charleville, Co Cork. \ Donal O' Leary
John McCabe, Teagasc speaking during the Irish Grassland Association Dairy Conference in Charleville, Co Cork. \ Donal O' Leary
Joe Deane, Cork.
The Deane farms
Farm one: Carrigaline (eight-year lease – just finished).Farm two: Carrigaline (11-year lease).Farm three: Carrigtwohill (10-year lease).Farm four: Michelstown 50;50 with Paul Kingston starting 2025.
Aine O' Connell, IFA Senior Dairy Policy Executive speaking during the Irish Grassland Association Dairy Conference in Charleville, Co Cork. \ Donal O' Leary
IGA summer tour
23rd July: Kevin and Margaret Twomey.Mike and Tina Bermingham. 
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