Teagasc's head of livestock systems and dairy enterprise leader Padraig French told dairy farmers to prioritise investments on their farms this year.

He outlined a tiered approach at the Teagasc 2025 Moorepark open day.

French said that 2023 was a bad year for dairy farmers in terms of profitability and family farm income.

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“Money invested in 2022 was invested in areas that gave a significant depreciation in 2023 but didn’t improve profitability. The key is that we take whatever surplus money is available on farms, and invest it in areas that are going to drive profitability or reduce costs," he said.

French outlined some priorities for investment that dairy farms should be investing in for 2025.

Investment priorities

  • First priority - Grazing infrastructure: soil fertility where there’s a lot of room for improvement, water infrastructure to allow farmers to better graze and utilise grass.
  • Second priority - Development of facilities: slurry storage, milking facilities, animal housing and facilities.
  • Third priority - Automative technology: robots, automatic-calf feeders, automatic-heat detection.
  • “They should be our priorities to insulate us and give us resilience for 2026," he told farmers.