Laurence Shalloo on the challenges & opportunities facing the dairy industry

Laurence Shalloo, Head of the Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Programme at Teagasc Moorepark, joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the dairy industry in the forthcoming years. Laurence looks back at challenges that were there in the late 2000s when expansion was beginning to kick off and there were many questions to be answered at many levels at that time. The industry working together came up with the solutions, he says, and this should give us lots of hope for the future also. Laurence went on to say that not everyone was in agreement in dealing with the previous challenges but by getting together and thrashing out the items of concern it led to the solutions being found. Laurence discusses water quality trends and while a recent EPA report isn’t looking favourable, Laurence quotes numbers that would suggest there is movement in the right direction, albeit not at the speed that we would like to see. He also spoke about the carbon footprint of Irish dairy which is really low already but we have the scope to drop that further. Research being done currently is reducing the output from the industry as well as the changes in farm practices. Speaking about the labour shortage in the economy as a whole, Laurence talks about reducing the labour demand on farms by becoming more efficient in terms of the labour requirement, but also by being more aware of what dairy farms have to offer in terms of opportunities for people, be they short term or long term opportunities. Finally, Laurence welcomes everyone to attend the Open Day next Tuesday July 4th starting at 8:30am and encourages people to engage as Teagasc want to get feedback from people at the coalface. For more details on the Open Day go to:https://www.teagasc.ie/corporate-events/moorepark-open-day/  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