So the national herd continues to fall. No surprise. The sector dwindles. The trend is clear. The latest annual Department of Agriculture stock number data confirms this.

The writing was on the wall for a long time but many of our politicians purposely ignored it or turned the other way. Yes, the March comparison numbers are an early herd indicator but the trend is obvious.

It’s not that long ago the Government and politicians absolved themselves from any such talk of a herd reduction and instead talked about herd “stabilisation” in 2021.

The then Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue, told RTÉ’s Prime Time that no farmer will be forced to cut their herd as a result of the carbon emissions reduction plan.

At the time, he denied that a 25% agriculture sector target emissions reduction would entail a 13% decrease in the beef herd and 11% in dairy cattle, as reported in the Irish Farmers Journal.

'No cull'

The then Tanáiste Leo Varadkar told the Dáil that there is “not going to be any cull” of the national herd in the Government’s Climate Action Plan.

He said: “Let me be very clear, there is not going to be any cull of the herd, that is not the proposal in the Climate Action Plan. What we anticipate seeing over the next number of years is herd stabilisation.”

There was talk of planting trees and other alternative land use options. That talk remains just talk.

In the Dáil in June 2023, the then Minister for Agriculture continued to justify an industry stakeholder group discussing a dairy cow cull scheme. The suckler cull scheme had already been banished when he addressed the IFA in Limerick’s Thomond Park in January 2023.

Why would you compensate farmers to reduce numbers when it was going to happen for free? “Just Transition” or compensation for reducing stock numbers wasn’t on the menu for farmers.

In the meantime, the farmers left producing food continue to invest and change management doing what they could to hit national carbon reduction targets. However, the subsequent piecemeal support mechanism and lack of viable alternatives now leaves a growing deficit.

Drop

Going on the Department’s March numbers, in the last three years alone we have dropped combined stock numbers by almost 440,000 head. Everything plays into this – more TB culling, voluntary reductions, live exports, retirements, etc.

It’s a long way from the so-called “stabilisation” and it will have real impact. Farmers, meat factories and milk processors will be hit.

Every milk processor team that we have met this year is worried. Despite positive milk and beef price returns, member survey results tell them not to expect any milk volume increase.

Uncertainty at farm level remains. Last week, we were in west Cork with Carbery. Their milk pool is now predicted to be flat at best. Carbery will find a way. They have other irons in the fire that have delivered in the past and will deliver for the future.

The stock reduction is not an Irish phenomenon.

The market reaction signals of the global stock reduction emerged last year when we saw young calves in the US making US$700-800 each at four weeks old.

The US stock reduction wasn’t policy-driven. The EU shift is policy-driven. The Irish downward shift is policy driven aligned with a scatter gun approach to investing in the sector: policy sliced and diced EU and Government funds into sometimes meaningless amounts that paled into insignificance relative to on-farm cost inflation.

To stem the tide, we need meaningful policy with no ambiguity. Farmers need to know what stocking rate they can hold. Without it, on farm investment will stagnate.

Investment on farm could well be wasted unless some clarity is achieved. A meaningful environmental scheme needs to be established that rewards farmers and land owners properly.

There should be a pause on restrictions proposed on peatlands and GAEC 2 parcels until farmers know what they are signing up to. Uncertainty impacts decisions – we see that in the wider Trump-driven global trade debacle playing out right now. Farming is no different.