Figures released by Bord Bia to the Irish Farmers Journal suggest over 17,000 dairy farmers (96%) have applied for the SDAS audit. Bord Bia’s chief executive Tara McCarthy said this week that 15,913 dairy farmers representing 90% of suppliers were SDAS-approved. She had given a similar figure at the Irish Farmers Journal Dairy Day event last November, adding that the target was to reach 100% “in a very short time”.

January and early February is a very busy time for audit completion and the Bord Bia spokesperson said that “the pattern for the last number of years would see up to 280 suppliers certified per week before the bulk of calving starts”.

A number of processors have written to farmers to alert them to the fact that they must be quality assured. If certification is up for renewal in March and April, many are advising farmers to get the renewal visit completed before cows start calving.

Last year, many processors introduced penalties for non-compliance and flagged that milk would not be collected unless farmers were quality assured. As most cows on spring milk farms are still dry the impact of the deadline has still not been quantified.

Carbery, Glanbia and Dairygold recently told the Irish Farmers Journal that they had decided to stop collecting milk from non-quality assured farms, with a six-month notice period in the case of Glanbia.

Big co-ops struggling to be 100% quality assured

Big push to complete dairy quality assurance

With one in 10 milk suppliers not yet certified under the Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme (SDAS), farmers are in serious danger of not having their milk collected if they are not quality assured.