The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) has called for the accelerated use of sexed semen to reduce the number of dairy-bred bull calves on farms and for no tolerance on the use of stock bulls of low genetic merit during the breeding season.

Both points are contained in the IFA’s updated calf husbandry policy, which has been updated ahead of the final meeting for 2023 of the calf stakeholder forum on Friday.

Among the actions sought, it called for more industry-led initiatives to be developed which foster relationships between dairy farmers with calf rearers.

It has also called for continued funding for research that can support the maintenance of the live export of calves.

Update

IFA dairy chair Stephen Arthur said that the association felt it was timely to update its policy position to reflect these improvements and identify further areas that farmers can target.

The policy document is broken into four sections, specifying actions that can be taken at farm level, at industry stakeholder level, at Government level and at exporter level.

“We do not support any policy changes that would extend the amount of time calves must spend at the farm of birth prior to sale. This would be counter-productive for the promotion of improved calf welfare,” he said.

He said focused actions for each stakeholder would be far more beneficial for calf welfare than changes across the board.

The calf policy document is available here.