Duhallow farmers win Cell Check award
THE CellCheck Milking For Quality Awards ceremony was held at the Lyrath Hotel, Kilkenny, on Wednesday, November 20th.
This is an initiative to recognise farmers currently achieving high standards of udder health on their farms. Since its inception, the maximum SCC of award recipients has fallen each year from 103,000 cells/ml in 2014 to 76,500 cells/mL in 2018.
The award is given to the 500 milk suppliers nationally with the lowest weighted annual average somatic cell count (SCC) for the previous year’s supply.
All 15 Co-ops that submitted data to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine had representatives in the ‘Best 500’ category.
The Cell Check Milking For Quality Awards ceremony was sponsored by FBD Insurance and supported by Ornua and Animal Health Ireland.
In addition to the individual awards that were presented, two discussion group categories were also awarded – Most Improved Group and Best SCC Group.
The winners in both categories were announced at the awards ceremony.
The Western Duhallow Discussion Group from Cork won the Most Improved Group while the Bunratty Discussion Group from Clare took the Best SCC Group Award.
The judges George Ramsbottom, Teagasc; Kevin Downing of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF); and Finola McCoy from AHI, used information submitted on the application forms and information accessed from ICBF and Teagasc systems to identify the winners.
In addition, a special presentation was made during the awards ceremony to the best performing supplier from each of the participating milk processors.
Finola McCoy, CellCheck programme manager said; “The CellCheck Milking for Quality awards are a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the excellence of so many Irish dairy herds”.