Flattening the curve will lead to €130 million loss at farm level annually

Laurence Shalloo joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to give his insights into a report investigating the merit of the seasonal milk supply curve that exists in Ireland. Laurence explains that the seasonal milk production system represents the predominant system type in Ireland and exploits the comparative competitive advantage of growing and utilising of grazed grass. From a processing efficiency perspective, this means Ireland is running an average efficiency of 62% compared with 90%+ in countries with less seasonally focused/all year calving type systems. Despite this, additional costs for capacity required to process peak milk production outweighs the lower processing efficiency. If all farmers moved from a spring calving model to a 50/50 spring/autumn calving model, processing efficiency would increase to 70% but would also lead to financial losses would amount to €130 million at farm level annually. Laurence urges farmers who are facing restricted processing during the peak months over the next few years to complete a cash flow budget to understand their farm’s financial position. Options to reduce milk production at peak is to lower concentrate fed during peak months and consider OAD milking for a certain proportion of the herd. For more information go to: https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/rural-economy/farm-management/Dairy-CashFlow-Budget.pdf For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at: https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/ The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com