Farmers are currently facing a 9m tonne shortfall in silage for feeding cattle next winter, a farmer meeting in Athy heard this week. This is the situation nationally and based on current fodder stocks, Glanbia feed technical support manager Martin Ryan said. The shortfall is the equivalent of about 2.4m tonnes of concentrates, he told the meeting of Kildare IFA.

The amount of silage that can be made from here on depends on weather, he said, advising farmers to be ready to apply fertiliser if rain continues. He said a reasonable assumption might be that grass growth rate would be half of normal in August and that there might be some compensatory growth in September.

He strongly advised farmers to assess their fodder situation now and make a plan for dealing with the deficiency. Doing so will reduce the stress farmers are under. Corrective action will also be more effective when started early.

He also advised dairy farmers to keep cows milking on as this would ensure cashflow later in the year.

Ryan said that the volumes of concentrates that farmers will need next winter will test the capacity of compounders. Glanbia was actively planning now so that it would be able to produce the necessary volumes of feedstuffs. It will run a series of fodder planning meetings over coming days.

Honest brokers

IFA south Leinster chair Tom Shortt said there is an opportunity over the next 10 days for catch crops to be sown on tillage farmers’ land for use by livestock farmers. He called on Glanbia and other co-ops to act as honest brokers in helping this happen.

Martin Ryan said that Glanbia has helped put such agreements in place, particularly for maize crops, and therefore has templates. However, he cautioned that seed for catch crops was fast running out.

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