This is a subscriber-only article
The now annual Animal Health Ireland (AHI) CellCheck awards recognise the top 500 dairy farmers who achieved an SCC of 78,000 or less over the course of 2016.
The country’s largest co-op, Glanbia, dominated the 2016 awards. Of the 500 recipients, 246 were from Glanbia.
The individual winners from each of the 14 co-ops in the @animalhealthire cell check awards. pic.twitter.com/tokxIwp9G1
— FJ Dairy (@FJDairy) November 23, 2017
The co-op with the next highest number of award-winning farmers was Lakeland with 47; Drinagh had 39, Dairygold 35 and Arrabawn 32.
Full co-op results
The CellCheck awards also recognised the top-performing farm from each of the 14 individual participating co-ops.
AHI chair Mike Magan spoke to the Irish Farmers Journal after the awards where he spoke of his pride in the success of the CellCheck programme.
“To me, this is the best night of the year. It’s a way to celebrate the excellence of our dairy farmers. It is also great to see the fruits of AHI work on show. A lot of what we do is never seen; it's work that continues in the background.
“But here we are with 500 farmers celebrating measurable success. It makes everything we do in AHI worthwhile,” Magan said.
The awards were held in the Lyrath Hotel, Co Kilkenny, on Thursday and were sponsored by the Irish Farmers Journal, Ornua, FBD and AHI.
Animal health Ireland – at a crossroads?
SHARING OPTIONS: