Alan Kehoe, a farmer in Wexford, told those who attended the Teagasc national beef conference today that he is on target to return a gross margin of over €1,200/ha from his beef business in 2018.

“The three-year plan I put in place with my Teagasc adviser set clear targets for me to achieve and by following this plan, especially in the area of grassland management, I am on target to return a gross margin of over €1,200/ha from my beef enterprise in 2018,” he told those who attended the conference at the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone.

The theme for the conference was putting “Practice into Profit” and Teagasc researcher Rob Prendiville said: “Systems that utilise high quantities of pasture and which are focused on high output per hectare are fundamental to the profitability of calf to beef systems.”

Martin Kavanagh, a consultant vet with Cow Solutions, spoke about a paper on the factors that affect calf health in indoor calf rearing systems. He said that “The environment the young calf is in is critical in maintaining the health of bought in calves and that good management input can solve many issues that otherwise would compromise the immune system and disease burdens on these calves.”

Other speakers at today’s conference include Thierry Pabiou of ICBF who presented a paper outlining how the French beef cattle performance-recording system works and Teagasc geneticist Donagh Berry, who described how, over the coming years, beef genomics will be more than just increasing the reliability of beef breeding indices.

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Full coverage: Teagasc beef conference 2016