Farmer Writes: removal of quotas was a turning point

Calving is progressing well, with 94% of the cows calved and only a few left to go. It’s been a steady calving period, with no major issues.

The calf sales have been strong, particularly with the Friesian bull calves, which have seen a big jump in price this year – doubling compared to last year. The highest price we’ve gotten so far is €275/calf for a batch. I’ve also held back 14 bull calves with EBIs over €300, which I plan to sell as breeding bulls next year.

Grass growth has been a challenge. Our average farm cover (AFC) last week was 667kg DM/ha, which is lower than we’d like at this time of year. We’ve grazed 77% of the farm, but the covers are dropping, and we’re heading into paddocks with just 1,100kg DM/ha. The cows are being fed 5kg of nuts, 8kg of DM silage, and 8kg of DM grass.

With only nine days left in the first grazing round, I may need to increase the nuts and silage if grass growth doesn’t pick up. We’re looking at 600-700kg DM/ha at the start of the second round, so we’ll have to keep a close eye on it.

Slurry

I’ve topped up all grazing paddocks to 60-70 units of nitrogen per acre, including slurry, and I’ll be spreading 18.6-0-15 on the paddocks going forward. The soil tests showed that most paddocks are now at index 2 for potassium, with some even at index 1. This is a bit of a shock, as most were index 4 the last time we tested, just three years ago.

Unfortunately, we had an incident on last week. One of our first-lactation heifers, which had been kept in at night due to some lameness, somehow got her collar caught on the head rail bar of the cubicle.

Sadly, we lost her as a result. It’s a disappointing loss, but we’ll carry on and keep moving forward

On the tillage side, Dad got all the ploughing done last week and sowed the spring barley over the weekend. The soil conditions were perfect, and he got it in about a month earlier than last year.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe that milk quotas have been gone for nearly 10 years. For me and our farm, the removal of quotas was a turning point. It allowed me to return home and farm alongside my parents. In 2015, we had around 60 cows, and now we’ve more than doubled our herd size. This growth has enabled us to support two families. Our farm has always been a dairy-only farm, so in that sense, not much has changed for us compared to farms that transitioned from mixed farming to dairy.

The end of quotas opened up many opportunities for young farmers like me, but it has also come with challenges. While the dairy industry has grown, that growth has stretched resources.

For many of us, it has meant taking on more debt and facing higher costs to meet the increasing demand.

Without production limits, there has been pressure to intensify farming, which brings its own issues – greater demands on labour, infrastructure and the environment. Recently, we’ve noticed a worrying trend where large investment companies with no real farming background are buying up agricultural land for tax benefits, not because they’re interested in farming itself.

These well-funded companies can afford to buy large chunks of land, driving up land prices and making it even harder for regular farmers to afford land.

As a result, land has become too expensive for younger farmers, like myself, who are trying to get started. The tax incentives for leasing land were meant to encourage investment in farming, but instead, they’ve made it easier for these large investors to push up land prices, which harms smaller farmers.

We’re also facing new challenges with indirect quotas on land and restrictions on animal numbers imposed by the EU. These regulations, coupled with growing environmental pressures, are now slowing down the growth we saw after the removal of quotas.

It’s frustrating, especially when you look at countries like China and the US, who are ramping up production on a much larger scale, often with fewer environmental regulations than we have here in Ireland. Our green image is something we’ve worked hard to build, and it’s become part of our identity as farmers. However, this image is at risk if the EU continues to impose regulations that make it harder for us to compete.

While we are committed to sustainable practices, it’s difficult to keep up with the rapid expansion of other global markets, especially when they face fewer environmental constraints. Balancing environmental responsibility with the pressures of increasing production is a challenge that needs careful attention to ensure we maintain our farming practices, while staying competitive on the global stage.