Dairy farmers in NI need to have a greater focus on breeding cows that can make better use of grass, AI Services chief executive Sam Campbell has said.

Speaking at a dairy fertility event in Newtownards on Monday, Campbell revealed that the latest benchmarking figures, which are compiled by AI Services on behalf of CAFRE, show that average milk from grass forage in NI is less than 1,600 litres per cow.

According to Campbell, dairy farmers should instead be pushing for 3,500 to 4,000 litres from forage. “We have lost the plot in Northern Ireland to a certain extent,” he said.

Cost

The AI Services chief suggested that, on average, it costs around 5p/l to produce milk from grass in NI, 10p/l to produce from first-cut silage and 30p/l to produce from concentrates. “Where you make money or lose money depends on where you get that milk from,” Campbell said.

He maintained that more NI farmers should strive to breed what he called “a flexi-cow”. This is a cow that can produce milk from grass when conditions allow, but can also respond to concentrates if needed.

“We need a certain degree of flexibility in systems, especially during years like this,” Campbell said.