Ger and Angela O’Sullivan are in a three-way partnership with their eldest son, David, who returned from nine months in New Zealand in 2014.

They are milking 229 cows in Kinsale, Co Cork.

The Kiwi influence on the O’Sullivan farm began long before David’s travels. Successive farm advisors from New Zealand worked with Ger and Angela in the 1990s. One of them was Leonie Foster, who advised them to stop feeding meal and topping. “Let your cows be the topper,” was her mantra.

Breeding policy moved away from high-yielding Holstein Friesian towards New Zealand and Jersey genetics. It is 15 years since a pure black-and-white bull has been used.

The start of calving used to be in early January, but this shifted back to 14 February and it has not moved since.

On the financial side, Leonie’s guidelines and financial management principles were to have an even greater impact. Angela describes the process: “At each visit, I would prepare the actual income and expenses for the previous month and we would do a budget of income and expenses for the next month. If we said we weren’t going to buy something, but we did, we would have to justify it to Leonie and we rarely ever won that argument.”

Cow numbers gradually increased and by 2012 there were 94 cows being milked. Investments on the farm were minimised. Over the years, the parlour was extended and it is now a seven-unit double-up.

A decision was made in 2012 that they would switch to once-a-day milking to minimise the milk quota superlevy bill. Combined with low prices, that year was tough on the farm’s finances, but its profit monitor showed that the O’Sullivans regained the lost ground in 2013.

This is when David decided to come home: “I was working in a very isolated part of the South Island. While the work was enjoyable and I was learning a lot, I was getting kind of fed up of it.”

The family decided that they would set up a three-way partnership, lease a farm and set up a second milking herd. While the whole farm would be managed under a partnership arrangement, David was going to be the day-to-day manager of the new farm, while Ger and Angela would continue to manage the home farm. In four years’ time, as Ger turns 60, the plan is that he and Angela will become the contract rearers of the youngstock and David will have full control of both dairy herds.

They leased a neighbouring beef farm and converted it. Roadways, a 16-unit milking parlour and a bulk tank were needed – a €350,000 investment.

This means that David’s income from the farm for the next four years will be small. At the moment, it is in the order of €1,000 per month.

With the €3,000 top-up from the National Reserve as a young farmer, he purchased a mobile home which is on the leased farm. His car and meals are provided for, so his demand for money is low anyway and, at 25, all he really wants is money for nights out, holidays and a new surfboard.

The O’Sullivan family is one of the farms profiled in the Irish Dairy Farmer magazine. To read the full story of their partnership, the system they run and figures from the farm, as well as other farmer profiles focused on labour management, pick up your copy available in shops now.