Ireland’s grazing livestock farms have the eighth lowest average stocking rates of the 25 EU countries assessed in a recent European Commission report, despite Ireland being the sole member state left operating with a nitrates derogation.

The report sets out the declining trends in EU livestock farming that the Commission sought to address with its publication of a new strategy for the sector last month, as well as the background against which Brussels weighed up the current round of CAP reform.

It flags that the EU’s cattle herd of 72m head in 2025 is 11% smaller in terms of dairy cows than it had been in 2010 and that beef numbers are back 7% over the same timeframe.

Milk output managed to grow by a fifth during this decline, fuelled by a 28% rise in per cow yields, while beef output dropped 11%.

The report states that in many eastern and southeastern EU member states “dairy cows are being given up faster than beef animals, whether through farm exit or a shift towards beef cattle systems”.

The shift to beef-oriented systems is happening in regions with a higher availability of and lower cost to accessing land, as well as recently-improved processing capacity and better integration with EU markets to facilitate exports to other member states.

Poland was one of these countries, seeing a 10% suckler-driven jump in cattle numbers since 2010 and although its dairy cow numbers reduced over the same timeframe, average milk yields increased substantially.

Ireland has been the country that witnessed the second highest jump in the percentage of dairy cows as a proportion of all cattle at 6.7%, just behind Luxembourg, with this movement sitting against a broadly stable EU trend of dairy’s share of the bovine population staying steady.

In general, EU milk production is increasingly concentrated in north-west member states, including Ireland.

Stocking rate focus

The report examines stocking rates across the EU in depth as it delivered dual warnings of excessive densities in some regions adding to environmental pressures, but an abandonment of grazing systems in others negatively impacting on protected habitats.

It set out that 41% of Irish grazing livestock farms are stocked above 1.4LU/ha, with the equivalent being a respective 89%, 86% and 74% of grazing farms in the more intense member states of Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark.

Over one-third of grazing farms in both Belgium and Denmark are stocked above 4LU/ha, with the proportion of Irish farms falling into this “very intensive” category among the lowest in Europe.

These very intensive 4LU/ha farms represent one farm out of every six operating across the EU and correspond mostly to “high-output dairy and mixed systems where housed or partly housed animals are the norm”.

The report claims that extensification on cattle and sheep farms results in “no income penalty when herd size is held constant; the income loss associated with extensification in these systems is primarily a function of herd size reduction, not density reduction per se”.

It states that this is different in dairying, where “extensification implies a real income cost, because intensive dairy benefits from both higher yields per cow and larger herds”.

This interpretation of extensification would depend on a farm being able to source additional land across which to graze. The report argues that the profitability associated with intensive is more a proxy of profitable specialised dairy production, rather than stocking rate.

It raises these density-income points when stating that current total CAP supports do not majorly differentiate between lowly stocked and highly stocked farms as it said that “thresholds, requirements or premiums linked to stocking density” could be used to target environmental funds in the CAP.

Diverse sector

The report stresses that the Commission’s strategy to stem the decline in cattle numbers across the EU seeks to cater for all farm system types, including some far removed from Ireland’s grass-based model.

Among the figures highlighted are that a majority of the EU’s livestock farms carry fewer than five livestock units/ha and that one in every five cattle farms do not have outdoor access.

Germany, Poland and Italy are among the countries with a large proportion of their cattle remaining in constant confinement.

Of the cattle that do have access to grazing in countries like Croatia, Romania, Italy, this access averages one-to-two months per year. The report draws attention to the more traditional farming systems still operating outside Ireland, such as tie-up byres, which still accounts for 26% of the EU’s cattle housing supplies.

“This indicates that tie-stall systems, although declining in importance in terms of animal numbers, remain widespread among smaller and more traditional farms,” it said, giving Poland, Romania, Latvia and Lithuania as examples of places where it’s common.

New strategy

July’s publication of the new Commission strategy for livestock came as Brussels has claimed that it will safeguard the sector from land abandonment and the tide of farmers quitting.

It pledges to help de-risk livestock farming from market swings, ensure imported animal foods better align with EU standards and to increase the attractiveness of the sector to the next generation.