The Ryan family from Lisheen in Thurles, Co Tipperary, opened their farm gates to over 700 people on Wednesday 24 June for the NDC/Kerrygold Quality Milk Awards 2025 farm walk.
Mary, Tom and Michael Ryan are farming in partnership, milking around 150 cows on a 56ha milking platform outside Thurles.
The enterprise is operating a spring calving system with a high emphasis on six-week calving rate to maximise the milk production from grass.
In 2025, the Ryans sold 548kgs of milk solids to Centenary Thurles Co-operative at 4.4% fat and 3.66% protein.
The event, jointly hosted by Centenary Thurles Co-operative, the National Dairy Council, Ornua and Teagasc, celebrated the success of the Ryan family – who won the competition in 2025 for excellence in milk quality and sustainability.
On the day, Karina Pierce, professor of dairy production at UCD and judge of the NDC/Kerrygold Quality Milk Awards, said a number of things made the Ryan family farm stand out as the overall winners.
“The Milk Quality Awards; obviously milk quality is important but it's about much more than that now. When we came onto the Ryan's farm... [it was] attention to detail, the adoption of technologies, a focus on grass, doing a lot of the simple things right and consistently right, but apart from that to something that really stood out to us as judges was a real appreciation for nature, biodiversity and a proof to us that you can have a commercial focus on a farm but also have a really significant focus on water, nature and biodiversity as well,” says Karina.
Watch the video below where Aidan Brennan interviews Michael Ryan and professor Karina Pierce.
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