Up to 500 dairy farmers will be invited in early 2018 to join a new initiative that has been developed by CAFRE, in conjunction with NI dairy companies, to improve profitability on farms.

The target audience is farmers currently outside of CAFRE business development groups (BDG), and therefore without direct contact with a CAFRE adviser. Currently, a total of 933 dairy farmers are in the BDG programme, and are understood to account for approximately 40% of the NI milk pool.

The new initiative is designed to offer technical information and training to other dairy farmers.

“CAFRE will work with the dairy companies to develop a programme of meetings and decision support tools for their farmers” confirmed CAFRE director Martin McKendry at last week’s Winter Fair.

However, it is expected that much of the focus will be on getting farmers to measure margin over concentrate (MOC), which requires information to be kept on the number of cows in milk, monthly milk sales and concentrate fed. It is seen as a relatively simple calculation to undertake, and a relatively good indicator of herd performance on a dairy farm.

More information on the initiative will be available in the new year, with the intention of having farmers recruited by March 2018.