Efficiency on the farm rather than more cows is what will provide more milk to the Irish dairy pool, Carbery chair TJ Sullivan has said.

When asked if Carbery sees more milk coming its way in the future at Dairy Day 2019, Sullivan said: “[We have to] plan for everything, maybe more milk in the future will be come from more efficiency on the farm rather than more cows, because, with environmental constraints, it’s very hard to judge that going forward.

“Efficiency is very high at the moment, but who knows what technology will bring.

“First and foremost we have to be able to cater for our suppliers, nobody wants to turn away a milk supplier at the moment.”

Aurivo investments

Pat Duffy, Aurivo chair, said that the co-op has invested in its Ballaghaderreen plant and “that gives us cover to cope with the growth we have already seen and it does give us some headroom for growth in years to come”.

Duffy continued: "Aside from that, we’ve invested in Killygordon in our liquid milk and that at one time was our highest added value part of the business.

“The domestic market is in a time of friction at the moment, but we have a quarter of our milk pool serving the domestic market in the form of fresh milk."

Duffy said that this year Aurivo has seen growth of 6.5% to 7% in supply.

“That’s coming on the back of year-on-year growth of between 8% and 10%,” he said, adding that he sees growth continuing in the Aurivo region.

“The difference between our region and TJ’s region, I suppose, growth and people coming into the region where we operate, hasn’t maxed out yet and that’s for two reasons.

“One, I think the poor return for beef farmers is driving an lot of farmers towards dairy and I suppose young farmers nowadays see a sustainable living in dairy for their families for the future.

“We’re expecting somewhere between 20 and 30 new entrants next year, those new entrants have bigger scale than what we had previously,” Duffy said.

Dairygold

Dairygold chair John O’Gorman said that in 2012/2013 Dairygold did a survey of its members to find out what their ambition for growth was.

“Post-quota 2015, they had a very much pent up admission to grow their on farm businesses,” he said.

Tom Phelan, the IFA’s dairy chair, said that since quotas were lifted there's been phenomenal growth across Ireland.

“That was inevitable because of 30 years of frustration of not being able to do anything. Going forward, we will have growth, though it will be more moderate.

“That will give us an opportunity to focus on adding value and also embracing the challenge regarding the environment,” Phelan said.

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