We need to talk about dairy beef

The national dairy herd is growing at an exponential rate. It stands at 1.4m dairy cows at the moment and it is predicted that by 2020 this figure could reach over 1.6m. In 2015, there were just under 500,000 beef-sired calves registered from dairy cows. This figure is likely to hit 650,000 by 2021 for dairy beef calves and, if sexed semen technologies improve and farmers embrace them, this figure could be closer to 1m calves in the very near future.

While calf exports will still play an important role, it will mean more calves available to Irish farmers for finishing. The national suckler herd is declining in numbers. There were 870,567 suckler cows on 31 December 2017 and calf registrations are back by 43,079 so far this year. Over the past two years, there has been a huge interest from beef and suckler farmers in calf-rearing enterprises. Many are exploring opportunities about how a calf enterprise could run alongside an existing suckler operation or other cattle rearing enterprise while others have sold off their suckler cows to pursue a dairy calf to beef enterprise.

Dairy beef index

Teagasc and ICBF have been talking about a dairy beef index for four years now. There is hope that it will be released in time for 2019 breeding but there have been a few false dawns. The index hopes to identify AI sires that are easily calved with short gestations but also have good carcase weight and carcase conformation. The index is badly needed, but it is unlikely to be used as a selection tool on dairy farms for a number of years. Money talks and unless dairy farmers see a price differential between calves of high genetic beef merit and low genetic beef merit, what incentive will there be for dairy farmers to use these genetics and select using the dairy beef index?

Genotyping at registration

At the ICBF genetics conference last week in Athlone, Dr Andrew Cromie spoke about the idea of sire verifying and DNA testing of calves at birth. He said costs for DNA testing of calves would be lower if a large number were tested and could come down as low as €14/calf in the future. In a pilot study in spring 2018, ICBF carried out genomic tagging on all calves on a number of farms to see what turnaround times would be like and how the system would work. Turnaround time for sire verification was about 14 days and ICBF are confident that this could be quicker if the right infrastructure was in place. The question is, does the industry see a value in DNA testing and who would pay for it? At 1.5m dairy calves born annually, it comes in at a cost of €20m. At the moment, with just over 50% of beef calves from the dairy herd registered with a sire, a dairy beef index will not work. These comments echoed Prof Donagh Berry’s at the recent Teagasc National Beef conference where he said the industry at some point in the future will have to move to DNA testing of calves.

Specifications and image

Our processors haven’t come out in arms over light, out-of-spec carcases. But then again why would they – 60% of our exported beef ends up as burger meat or mince. Processors get to buy beef at a reduced rate in our current payment system and sell it on the back of our suckler beef sector. Even the most experienced connoisseur would find it hard to tell the difference between a U=3= and a P=3= when it’s between a burger bun. We have built up a reputation for high-quality carcases being exported to high-value markets. If the genetics we are using bring us down to global commodity price level, it could also weaken our hand in portraying Ireland as a green, low carbon footprint beef-producing country when in fact the system is economically unsustainable for Irish beef farmers.

Public perception

For an exporting dairy and beef country, international perception of quality and high animal welfare standards is of the utmost importance. While Irish farms operate to very high animal welfare standards, the potential for welfare issues on rapidly expanding dairy farms is a growing concern.

Should Irish beef farmers be purchasing genetically inferior calves that are at best going to break even and if they don’t, what happens them?

If the dairy industry chooses to go down the route of smaller cow, smaller sire genetics, we will come to a point where we need ta talk about alternative routes to market for these calves. Dairy farmers are doing a very good job – using short-gestation bulls with minimal calving ease means more days in milk and a shorter resumption to cycling. So what’s the problem?

The issue is that these calves are generally smaller at birth and have very little desirable beef traits including carcase weight and conformation figures. This poses the question, should Irish beef farmers be purchasing genetically inferior calves that are at best going to break even and if they don’t, what happens them?

Other commentators have said they will go on the boat but surely if the calves don’t leave a profit in Ireland, they will also struggle in Holland, Spain and Italy where a lot of our exported calves end up. So who does the problem lie with – is it the dairy industry or is it the beef industry? In essence, it’s both. If beef farmers are unable to make money from dairy beef, it will mean a reduced demand for calves and leave questions as to where these calves go to. The dairy industry has continued to advise farmers down the crossbred route but have been less forthcoming with advice on what to do with the male calves from these matings.

Sires being used

Last spring, Teagasc released some sire advice to dairy farmers to select bulls when using beef bulls to mop up breeding. They advised no more than 4% calving difficulty with greater than 70% reliability, less than +1.5 days for gestation length at 70% reliability and +8 kg carcase at greater than 70% reliability.

When we apply the Teagasc recommended selection process to the ICBF active terminal list with a minimum of 500 calving records in the database and keep AI straw costs at €10 or less, there are just 10 bulls in Irish AI available to dairy farmers. Not a great selection from over 427 bulls on the active terminal list as of this week.

If we take the carcase requirement out, this list goes to 29 bulls available. If we look at the top beef bulls used in the dairy herd in 2017, seven were negative for carcase weight.

As one would expect, a dairy cow will start out with a poor carcase weight index and the bulls that are being used are having a negative contribution on the calf. Take for example one of the most widely used beef bulls in the dairy herd last year. He has a massive 54,000 births recorded. He ticks all the boxes for the dairy farmer, easy calving at 0.8% and short gestation, -4.8 days. Some might say he is the dairy farmer’s dream, but when it comes to pulling down the scales he won’t be breaking any meat hooks at -2kg for carcase weight. He ranks in the top 5% of the breed for calving difficulty and gestation length but ranks in the bottom 10% for carcase weight and conformation.

Research farm remarkably quiet

Teagasc has been working with a processor, aided by ICBF through the Gene Ireland programme, on a research farm in the southeast for a number of years now. So far, there have been no economics on the systems employed on the farm published and updates have been remarkably quiet of late. Surely there would be merit in providing farmers with information on weight gains, system outputs, and most importantly profitability levels for each system. This farm was set up to look at different sires and the effects these sires have on growth and carcase output. However, without financial data, no clear messages will be seen from the project and no changes will occur.

Tullamore Farm

In January 2017, Tullamore Farm decided to rear 61 Aberdeen Angus and Hereford x dairy heifers. This was due to a lower stocking rate with no sheep grazing the farm in 2017 and a lot of reseeding taking place. The calves were purchased from seven different farms and reared in one of the loose sheds on the farm. Calves were grazed on reseeded pasture until early November when they transferred on to a forage Kale crop and were fed silage and Kale from November to January. As Kale was starting to run out, meal was introduced in February at the rate of 3kg/head/day and when storm Emma struck, heifers were moved on to a silage/meal diet for March. Heifers then grazed normally from April to June but then, as drought conditions set in, went back to a silage/meal diet from July to mid-August. They then went back to grass but continued meal feeding at grass until housing in October when on to good-quality silage and 6kg of meal. Performance to date is outlined in Table 2. We will detail full performance and financial margins in next week’s Irish Farmers Journal.

Time to talk about dairy beef

The time has come for all stakeholders in both the dairy and beef industry to sit down and talk about dairy beef and where we are going as an industry. Some of the current economics on dairy beef systems look very worrying from a beef farmer’s perspective.

The problem doesn’t lie with one industry or the other but rather it’s across both.

We have already seen some dairy processors in the UK pay farmers bonuses on milk where a route to market is defined for calves. We have seen a New Zealand dairy industry struggle with the public and at government level and we shouldn’t underestimate the power of public perception and the social licence that is required to farm in today’s society.

We have the tools and expertise in dairy processors, beef processors, Teagasc, ICBF and Bord Bia to solve this issue. But is the will there to tackle it?