By 2025 there will be an extra 5,000 jobs on Irish dairy farms, with global demand to go up by 2.5% in the next three years.

It’s an expanding sector and, with quotas gone, there are many opportunities to come from farm level right through to the end product.

“We have 30% extra milk produced above 2007 levels and there’s now 1.35m cows in Ireland,” said Paidi Kelly of Teagasc.

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“The national debt of dairy farmers, even though we’ve increased by 30% has gone down. So there’s less debt on dairy farms today than there was before quota removal. Even during this expansion process Irish dairy farmers have managed to continue to pay down debt as they got bigger... and cost of production has never been lower.”

Seamus Quigley dairy farmer is currently not farming any owned land himself and is farming two operations in Co Galway.

“It’s an absolutely fantastic time for young people to be involved in farming. Quotas are gone, the land mobility service is there and we’ve a better educated workforce so all the ingredients are there.”

The older workforce offers a lot of opportunity for young people that want to get in and grow a business in farming, he said.

“What I’m looking for in a young person in enthusiasm. Once they have that and you give them responsibility, they respond to that. It’s about allowing them to make some mistakes and learn from it

“For me, it’s someone who is honest and enthusiastic and they’ll develop the skills. Treat people as you would like to be treated yourself.”

Also on the panel was Adrian Beatty group head of HR with Dairygold.

The co-op processed 1.2bn litres of milk in 2016 and Adrian said the big challenge is adding value.

“That’s a lot of milk. A 44% rise from 2009 in terms of milk intake, but the challenge for us as processors is to ensure that we actually add value.”

“We currently employ 1204 people across the organisation and we are currently in the market for 15-20 graduates.”

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Watch back: Agri Careers Fair 2017