Standards slip as expansion pressures take their toll

JOHN Joe Collier is often the first man to get a call when a farmer finds themselves in bother with milk quality. He is a milk quality manager with Glanbia Ingredients Ireland, and he’s never been busier.

“I see a lot of farmers with a 30pc increase in output but less than 5pc extra staff. So lads are travelling faster and have less time to pay attention to some of the routine things,” comments the Laois native.

He believes that one of the most over-looked risks is the bulk tank.

“Bulk tanks have increased massively in size over the last 10 years, but it’s kind of forgotten about as people focus on getting through the daily workload. As a result you could have €3,0004,000 of milk sitting there, totally reliant on the systems in place to keep it cooled,” he said.

The risks are often multiplied by the fact that as few as three or four farms constitute an entire tanker making its way back to the processing plant. The days of the small collection of slightly dodgy milk being diluted and masked by the rest of the load are gone in this expansionary era.

“It has really got to the stage where a farmer investing in a tank today cannot afford to not get all the technological safeguards such as the phone alerts. Over the course of the tank’s 20-year life, it would be paid for by probably just one moment of forgetfulness,” said Mr Collier.

Fear

This fear of letting one tank of milk go bad and possibly contaminating a €10,000 load of milk in the milk truck was one of the principal reasons that DJ Keohane became one of the first customers to buy into Dairymaster’s bulk milk tanks that come with a built in phone connection to alert farmers to any potential problem.

Over the years, like most farmers, the Timoleague man had a couple of bad experiences with lost batches of milk due to a number of varied reasons.

“I suppose everybody has lost milk by letting in antibiotics, but we also lost milk because the compressor packed it in one time during a very hot period when it just over-heated.

“So when we up-graded to a new 12,000 litre tank five years ago, we decided to pay the extra €1,500 to have it linked into the mobile phone and Dairymaster’s operations back in Causeway.

“Overall, I paid about €23,000 when I traded in my old tank against it, and I also got a 40pc grant on it. I think that a second-hand tank of that size would’ve been hard to come by, and probably not saved me a lot,” he said.

The level of remote control that the GSM link built into the tank is impressive.

“It will text me if the tank hasn’t been switched to a wash within 30 minutes of being emptied. In addition, it will text me if the cooling or agitation stops for whatever reason.

“If there is any problem or update in the software, Dairymaster are able to dial into the system from Causeway in Kerry to work on the system,” said Mr Keohane.

Other farmers are taking a more cautious approach to paying out for this type of function on their tanks.

“I’ve always managed without any phone alert on the tank, and for the extra €3,000 that it might cost me, I decided to leave it off to see if the technology might get a bit cheaper over the coming years,” said Tipperary farmer John Dunne.

He spent €30,000 on a 13,000 litre Packo tank last autumn, and secured a TAMS grant on it.