The results of Teagasc’s National Farm Survey confirmed that the average dairy farm income fell below the €50,000 mark in 2023.Dairy incomes faced a 69% savaging as milk prices dropped despite input costs remaining unchanged from their record highs of 2022.
The results of Teagasc’s National Farm Survey confirmed that the average dairy farm income fell below the €50,000 mark in 2023.
Dairy incomes faced a 69% savaging as milk prices dropped despite input costs remaining unchanged from their record highs of 2022.
The squeeze from both sides knocked €105,000 off the sector’s average income last year on 2022’s levels.
Some 39% of farmers in the sector received an income of less than €30,000, while one in every seven’s income came in lower than €5,000.
The survey found that the average dairy herd consisted of 95 cows across 44ha of land dedicated to dairy and fed 1.2t/cow of concentrate.
Teagasc research officer Trevor Donnellan stated that the headline dairy figures for 2023 point to an end to the sector’s era of expansion, a key point being a drop in the year’s milk yield for the first time since the lifting of quotas.
“There is a definite sense in dairy in 2023 of a levelling-off. Pretty much since 2012, dairy has been on the expansion road, we have had a decade of expansion in the dairy sector,” the researcher told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“Even before quota was removed, dairy was gearing itself up for the post-quota world. What we saw in 2023 was flattening off there.”
Donnellan suggested that a five-year average be taken by farmers when forecasting income and profitability into the future to negate “huge swings” in particular years.
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Average farm income fell almost 60% in 2023 – Teagasc
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