Continued high rates of attrition in the number of farmers rearing calves was highlighted as a “major challenge” in the Irish calf-to-beef dairy industry on a recent Teagasc farm tour.
Speaking at the Teagasc DairyBeef500 farm rally at Keith and Olivia Lowry’s farm in Tuam, Co. Galway, last Thursday (July 9), Teagasc consultant, John Kilboyle, confirmed that 60% of prime cattle killed in Ireland were of dairy beef origin last year.
He said there were “enormous opportunities” right now for dairy beef operations, whether that be for dairy beef farmers, small farmers taking on some dairy beef as part of their system or new entrants to dairy beef, but he warned the system was “not without challenges”.
“When you look at it (beef and dairy farms) in terms of the attrition rate in dairy beef, or farmers going in and out of the system, 6 out of every 10 farmers who go into raising calves are out of the system within five years.
Commenting on this statistic, he said: “There is a big challenge at the farm level on how to adopt a sustainable system that continues on the farm and delivers results for yourselves as farmers.”
The latest Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) figures on attrition rates in dairy beef systems can be found here.
The Teagasc consultant said sustainability had three parts. “In terms of sustainability, for the system to be viable and sustainable on farms, it has to be profitable,” he said.
“It doesn’t really matter after that. If it’s not profitable, it’s not sustainable.”
He also said that the farmers hosting the event were working off-farm, adding that this was also the case for many farmers who were in the calf business.
With this in mind, Kilboyle stressed that beef production systems also had to be efficient to be sustainable, saying: “If it’s not easy to implement on farms, it won’t either.”
He stressed the importance of a sustainable farming system being as simple as possible and allowing for a good work-life balance.
He also said that the environmental challenges facing agriculture in Ireland “are present and real”.
Farm walk
The farm tour looked at how to address all of these sustainability challenges.
The goal of the farm tour is to highlight “how we can drive a profitable, simple system that also has a positive impact on the environment in terms of water quality and the emissions challenges that exist, and that can be done,” Kilboyle said.
Huge crowds attended the farm rally with a high level of interest in the system run by the Lowrys.
The farm tour also examined the profitability of DairyBeef500 farmers. Other areas discussed included calf health and nutrition as well as keeping calves thriving on grass.
The important role of grazing infrastructure and trying to achieve more benefit from the grass grown on the farm and how to obtain the largest possible amount of live weight from animals living on the grass were also discussed.
There was also a discussion on reseed management and best practices for farmers when managing newly established reseeds.
