The future of dairying in Ireland is bright. There were many times over the last 12 months when the sanity of the person writing that sentence would have been questioned. The fact that both weather and milk price have improved considerably since autumn doesn’t make that sentence any truer. The fact is, the world is short of fat and protein and increasingly so. Whoever can supply that growing market has a bright future.

The long-term fundamentals are strong, with growing demand for dairy in Africa and Asia and a reduction or stagnation in supply across the EU, New Zealand and Australia. The United States is the only western economy that has the ambition and capability to increase milk output and with Donald Trump steering the ship, who would bet against them doing just that.

This time last year, Irish agriculture was fighting to save the derogation from being cut from 250kg N/ha to 220kg N/ha. The then European Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius was in Ireland on the very same day as Dairy Day, meeting Irish officials.

In the end, nothing tangible was achieved and the measure to cut stocking rate came in as originally proposed.

Fundamental

Since then, the fight has been about maintaining the derogation at 220kg N/ha. It has been described as being of fundamental importance to the Irish dairy sector and as the country goes to the polls in the general election this November, it is important that politicians are reminded of this fact when they come to the doors.

Three things need to happen in order to win the water quality battle and have long-term confidence in maintaining the derogation.

Next review

Firstly, there needs to be certainty that there will be a derogation at the next review at the end of 2025. Secondly, farmers need to invest in infrastructure and/or change practices to avoid nutrient loss. Lastly, the Environmental Protection Agency or other authorities need to be more thorough in how they report on the causes of water quality issues and data on water quality needs to be freely available, accurate and timely.

These issues will be discussed at Dairy Day 2024, along with a plethora of other topics including dairy markets, calf exports, careers, slurry storage, farming in New Zealand and Netherlands, plus lots more.

This year, we are introducing a third stage as a technical hub area, where visitors can chat with experts from the Irish Farmers Journal and other organisations to get information, solve specific problems and get expert opinion on matters important to them.

As always, we thank our sponsors and exhibitors for their support, without whom it would not be possible to hold such an event.

A special word of thanks goes to our speakers, some of whom have travelled long distances to come to Dairy Day.

An extra special word of thanks to our farmer speakers for sharing their own experiences with a wider audience. It is from others that we all learn.