Drought conditions costing dairy farmer €200 per day

WITH forecasters predicting little or no relief from the drought-like weather conditions, dairy farmers across north Cork are coming under increasing financial pressure to feed their herds.

One north Cork farmer, who requested not to be named, has said the weather is hitting his pocket hard, estimating that keeping his animals fed is costing him at least an additional €200 per day.

He works a 90-acre farm in the Fermoy area with a mixed herd of approximately 120 suckler cows, calves, weanlings and finishing cattle.

The farmer told The Corkman the combination of soaring temperatures and no rainfall over recent weeks has dried out the ground resulting in no grass growth.

“Normally at this time of the year a farmer might be giving a small amount of compound feed to top up grazing when animals are milking. However, in my own case, no grass growth means that I have to give my animals five or six times more feed than I might otherwise do at this time of the year,” he said.

“I would estimate that this is costing an additional €200 a day, if not more. The quality of milk and yields can still be kept up, but in order to do that you have to give your animals quality feed. You simply can’t afford to let them dry up. It’s not like turning on and off a tap. Once a cow dries up, it will stay dried up.”

The farmer said that one significant financial problem facing farmers was that many have yet to pay off their spring feed bills, with the prolonged spell of wet weather over the winter playing havoc with often delicate finances.

“They would have been hoping that the summer boost would have taken care of the spring bills. But that is not happening down to the simple fact there is little or no grass in the fields.”

He said that many farmers have had no option but to use up their winter silage stocks and that this, combined with poor yields from second silage cuts had left them facing into another set of problems down the line.

He said that if there was not a break soon in the weather many small to medium dairy farmers would consider themselves lucky just to break even this year.

“It’s not too late for things to turn around. However, the last thing that we need now is a prolonged and intensive spell of rain. As there is no grass to soak rain up, that would simply turn the ground to a mucky mess that would, in turn, also severely impact grass growth,” he said.

“It we get rain in bursts over periods of a couple of day, it will turn the situation around very quickly. Its all about getting the right conditions for even and sustainable grass growth.”