The last 10 years have seen a rapid transformation of the dairy herd in Ireland. Herd size has increased significantly and the volume of milk produced has also increased. In terms of size, the average in Ireland is now 75 cows. However, individual processors, such as Glanbia in the east and north of the country, now have an average herd size of 94 cows.

Scale has increased significantly as farmers decide to replace beef cattle with more cows and often replace heifer replacements with more milking cows to help streamline the workload. Of the 1.3 million dairy cows, about 520,000 cows are in herds of between 50 and 100 in number. Over 600,000 cows are in herds of 100-plus (see Fig 1).

Figure 2 shows the expected growth that was forecast in 2014 prior to the abolition of milk quotas in 2015. While 2017 is not complete, it now seems likely that the Republic could exceed these targets and produce over 7 billion litres of milk in 2017, less than three years since quotas were removed.

In Northern Ireland, the volume of milk produced increased steadily for the last 15 years as milk flowed into the North from the UK. Over 2 billion of litres of milk is produced in the North and supplied to three main processors, Dale Farm, Lakeland and LacPatrick, with Glanbia also a major player in the market up North.

Dairy Day 2017

The Irish Farmers Journal will host National Dairy Day on Thursday 23 November 2017 in Punchestown Event Centre, Co. Kildare. The event promises to offer solutions for a growing sector. The day aims to showcase all that is good about the dairy industry and find solutions for farmers to emerging challenges and trends. To get a FREE ticket for Dairy Day, simply collect 3 tokens from the Irish Farmers Journal and bring them along with you on the day or BUY YOUR TICKET HERE