Has fodder crisis highlighted a failing farming

IT is human nature to knock those who appear to be successful in life. We Irish are particularly good at it, the last generation raised us to ensure “we did not get above our station”, the last straw was success going to somebody’s head.

When the history of Irish agriculture is written, this period in time will be seen as the dairy farming era of success. Gone are the days of restricted milk production. This post-EU milk quota period of rapid dairy cow expansion has ruffled the feathers of beef and arable farmers, but it has also registered with our urban cousins.

Wall-to-wall coverage of the fodder crisis has raised questions about animal welfare, the environment and even farmer mental health.

It has provided the perfect platform for advertising campaigns such as the GoVegan campaign and comments from various other commentators. A recent quote from a national newspaper stated that “the recent fodder crisis proved we have too many cows and that the model of farming was failing farmers, society and the environment”.

I asked myself the question, is this true?

The facts show that we now have 1.34 million dairy cows in Ireland, but 40 years ago — before the introduction of milk quotas — we actually had 1.51 million dairy cows.

Dairy cow numbers dropped significantly from a peak of 1.52m in 1984, just after milk quotas were introduced, to just 0.995m in 2005.

The announcement that milk quotas were going in 2017 has seen dairy cow numbers recover to today’s level. Therefore, it is fair to conclude that dairy cows are encounter mental health issues and are unable to care for their animals.

Today’s modern farms have better facilities and knowledge, more people are involved full-time in the management of the farm, thereby reducing the risk of isolated incidents, as described above.

Modern dairy cows are bred for health traits as well as production and fertility traits, it in nobody’s interest to breed cows that are not comfortable in the system of production. Farmers often care for the animals better than they care for themselves. The dairy boom is not affecting animal welfare.

Environmental matters are currently a challenge for the industry and the dairy systems of production in this country. Water pollution is no longer