As agriculture strives to reduce its carbon emissions by 2030, Zoe Kavanagh of the National Dairy Council and the European Milk Forum has stated: “I believe by 2030 Ireland will be the best dairy-producing nation in the world because of our credentials. We need to earn the recognition with the public.”

At a virtual farm walk held on Shane O’Loughlin’s farm in Co Kildare, organised by the European Milk Forum and Glanbia Ireland, she added that the industry needs to provide the proof points from farmers like O’Loughlin and others all over the country to reassure consumers.

O’Loughlin highlighted the measures he takes to look after his animals and to reduce his carbon footprint, from having his cows grazing 300 days of the year to soil sampling 25% of the farm each year, to ensuring fertiliser is used efficiently and to protect water quality.

Those tuning into the walk heard that just one in 10 consumers of dairy products have ever been on a dairy farm.

However, 78.4% of consumers believe that farmers provide safe, healthy and nutritious products, with only 4.8% disagreeing with this statement.

Organics

Chair of Glanbia Ireland, John Murphy, was asked if organic dairy is something Glanbia was thinking about.

“At the moment, we don’t have any plans to develop an organic sector. We have a huge volume of milk, but it’s something that we would be open to doing in the future. There’s no question that’s the direction.

“It’s something that you need scale to make it work. In the future I wouldn’t rule it out,” he said.