Over 1,500 farmers attended the Greenfield dairy farm open day in Kilkenny on Wednesday. Now in its seventh year of production, the open day highlighted the key lessons from the farm. The farm was converted from long-term tillage to grassland in autumn 2009 and milk production began in 2010.

At the opening board, Laurence Shalloo from Moorepark highlighted the financial position of the farm, saying the 2016 cashflow budget shows a deficit of just under €10,000, so the farm will be eating into its financial reserve of €126,000.

“At this stage, we can handle volatility a lot better –we have a mature herd, grass growth is well up on the initial years and herd fertility is excellent. We also have a financial reserve built up to handle volatility and we have 25% of the milk sold locked into the fixed milk price scheme.”

Milk protein percentage

Milk protein percentage has increased from 3.54% (2010) to 3.87% (2015) on the Greenfield farm and milk fat percentage has increased from 4.28% (2010) to 4.64% (2015).

That increase is worth 3.4c/l when base milk price is at 29c/l, and 2.8c/l when milk price is at 23c/l.

Jack Kennedy contributed reporting to this story

Read the full report from the Greenfield open day in this week’s print edition of the Irish Farmers Journal, in shops from Thursday 19 May.