Representatives from livestock feed companies located across Ireland gathered at the Killeshin Hotel in Portlaoise, Co. Laois, on Thursday, June 20, for the Irish Grain and Feed Association (IGFA) event.
The event was titled ‘Future Feeding Forum’ and kicked off with a welcoming address from Ray Winters, IGFA president.
UCD’s Prof. Tommy Boland was the moderator of the event and kept proceedings running smoothly on the day.
The first guest speaker was Prof. Finbar Mulligan from UCD who delivered a presentation titled: ‘The development of a sustainable, high output grass-based spring milk production system.’
He outlined some of the key findings from research at UCD on running this type of dairy enterprise.
He outlined research showing how lower stocking rates of higher-yielding cows that are fed higher concentrate levels – but grass still forms the majority of the diet – have the potential to deliver higher milk output both per cow and per hectare, and also deliver a higher economic profit for farmers.
Next up was Dr. Doreen Corridan who is the CEO of the National Cattle Breeding Centre (NCBC). She delivered a presentation entitled: ‘Breeding for improved lifetime performance’.
She outlined the advances that are being made in the dairy herd from a genetic perspective with 30% of replacement heifers now bred from sexed semen – and added that this figure is growing.
She also explained how the use of sexed semen has the potential to allow dairy farmers to produce higher genetic merit beef-sired calves.
She raised the point that if the top Economic Breeding Index (EBI) herds nationwide were producing higher volumes of replacement heifers with lower genetic-merit dairy herds using more beef-sires for breeding, it would increase the rate of genetic gain in the national dairy herd.
She acknowledged that animal health protocols in some dairy herds – that prefer not to buy in replacements – could be a limiting factor to this strategy for some farmers.
She also outlined that genetics is only one piece of the overall picture, saying: “Genetics creates the potential, nutrition and management realises it and disease destroys it”.
Interestingly, she also outlined that 2023 was the first year there were more beef-sired calves born from the dairy herd than dairy-sired calves.
Next up was Dr. Des Rice, who is the managing director of ‘Lifeskilz’ and is also well-known from his previous career as a veterinary specialist in the agricultural sector.
His presentation was entitled ‘Stress management for difficult times and techniques for staying calm’.
The presentation involved teaching delegates at the forum various methods for managing stress and anxiety.
The forum took an interesting turn during the presentation when delegates at the event were all invited to lye on the ground to practice breathing exercises.
The key theme of this presentation was discussing ways of maintaining good mental health and encouraging people to talk about different ways to manage anxiety which can often be a challenge in the farming community.
In the afternoon session, Bord Bia’s Joe Burke delivered a presentation entitled: ‘Opportunities for the beef sector – feeding and finishing cattle’
The livestock specialist gave an overview of beef markets and expressed optimism for the cattle trade in the second half of the year noting that the supply-demand dynamic is expected to be more in favour of the farmer.
The IGFA event drew to a close with a panel discussion that included the guest speakers as well as a dairy farmer from west Cork – Robert Shannon.
The focus of the panel discussion was ‘what do we see is the future of dairy farming’ and panelists all give their views on the challenges and opportunities that lye ahead for dairy farming in Ireland.