Welcome to this special focus on the Kerry Agribusiness Milk Quality and Sustainability Awards, now in its second year of operation. The competition aims to identify and celebrate the success of the top-performing farmers in terms of milk quality and sustainability among the 3,000 or so Kerry Agribusiness milk suppliers.

The awards recognise the long history that Kerry Agribusiness suppliers have of supplying quality milk to the processor. The region has a very strong dairy heritage and Kerry Agribusiness has a long history of working with milk suppliers to ensure the adoption of best practice initiatives.

James O’Connell, general manager, Kerry Agribusiness, said: “Evolve, our dairy sustainability programme, was launched earlier this year with a focus on enhancing on-farm sustainability from water-quality and biodiversity to carbon and ammonia mitigation. We are delighted with the way our milk suppliers have responded to the programme, with huge engagement across the incentivised actions.

The awards recognise the importance of quality and ever growing importance of sustainability

"Our quality and sustainability awards provide us with a great opportunity to recognise milk suppliers that are going over and above in driving exceptional quality and sustainability standards on their farms.”

The awards have come about as a means by which Kerry can recognise and highlight the exceptional quality and sustainability standards across their milk supplier farms.

The awards recognise the importance of quality and ever growing importance of sustainability. This is especially noteworthy in light of the growing awareness around how crucial the adoption of sustainability actions on-farm and quality metrics are for continuous quality improvement.

Over the next five pages, each of the nine contestants are profiled from across the catchment in Kerry, Limerick, Cork and Clare. We thank the farmers for opening their farms to the judges and for sharing the secrets to their success. The judges were MaryAnne Hurley from Munster Technological University, John Murphy and Sean McCarthy, who look after milk quality and sustainability with Kerry and myself, Aidan Brennan from the Irish Farmers Journal. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on 9 August and will be featured again in the Irish Farmers Journal.