The innovation in our dairy industry must be applauded. Jack Kennedy outlines what one Dairygold family farm has developed for their business in conjunction with the help of Dairygold farm advisers around “lean” management.

While we have always associated lean management with a process-driven business such as milk processing, the rollout to commercial farms is a relatively new development.

Saying this, of course there are many good farmers out there who have been operating lean for many years. One question that must be asked is where is Teagasc (our national research and advisory agency) on this matter? Are we going to see each dairy processor roll out their own version of lean and another one from Teagasc at a later stage?

We all need to be talking the same language. This is a serious investment by Dairygold Co-op, which effectively is farmer-owned, to train up staff and roll it out across 3,000 or more dairy farms.

The farmer shouldn’t have to pay twice for everything.