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Despite high feed costs, a record year for milk prices meant dairy farmers in NI fed more concentrate in 2022 than ever before, data published by DAERA shows.
Across all sectors, 2.61mt of feed was delivered to local farms by NI feed companies in 2022, down slightly on the 2.63mt from the year previous.
The amount going to pig, poultry and sheep farms was all down, however, total cattle and calf feed sales were up 10,000t to stand at 1.36mt, which is just over half of all sales. This increase was driven by the dairy sector, with compound feed up 1% at 621,900t and dairy mixes up 7% at 249,800t. Sales of beef rations dropped marginally in 2022.
Similar trends are also seen in January 2023 data, with deliveries that month in the dairy sector over 8,000t ahead of the equivalent month last year.
Trend
The DAERA publication also shows that feed usage in the NI dairy sector has generally been on an upward trend in recent years. When compared to 2011, dairy farmers fed 33% more concentrate in 2022.
Over the same period, NI milk production is up 27.5%.
However, other sectors have also seen expansion since 2011 and are therefore feeding more. The amount delivered to pig units is up 35%, with poultry rations up 22.5% and beef rations up 14%.
The only sector showing a dip in sales is sheep, down 6% to stand at 62,400t in 2022. Sheep rations account for just 2.4% of all sales, well behind pigs (10%) and poultry (32%).
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