The Irish Government likes to talk about Irish dairy farming and the dairy industry as being sustainable.

Last week, the Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue was in China on a Bord Bia-organised trade mission focused partly on selling more Irish dairy to China – a huge and growing market for dairy.

Over the course of the trade mission, I wonder how many times the minister said the word “sustainable” in the context of Irish dairy? Maybe it would be easier to count how many times the word sustainable wasn’t said alongside “Irish dairy”, if at all?

The point here is that the Irish Government consistently says that Irish dairy farming is sustainable, and rightly so. International evidence shows that Irish dairy products are best in class in terms of carbon footprint.

However, looking at recent decisions, one would have to question if the Irish Government really believes that Irish dairy is sustainable. Never before has an Irish Government been so discriminatory in policy towards dairy farming.

Take the rules under TAMS III as an example.

A dairy farmer looking to upgrade their milking facilities cannot get grant aid if they currently milk more than 120 cows. The Government hasn’t given a reason for this, only to say that the “typical family farm” has 90 cows.

Then it emerged in recent weeks that even the typical family farm of 90 cows may be excluded from claiming TAMS for a new milking parlour if it doesn’t have at least 10% more slurry storage on the farm than is currently required by law.

This is surely a world first for a Government department to insist on citizens exceeding statutory requirements in order to claim something that they would ordinarily be eligible for.

It would be like if the Government decided it was only going to give student grants to those attending third-level education if they got 10% more CAO points than the college course they’re attending required.

If the Government is saying that the current rules around slurry storage requirements are insufficient, which they may well be, why aren’t all applicants to TAMS III asked to prove they have 10% more storage than required? How come it is only dairy farmers looking for additional milking equipment who have to jump through this hoop?

Stocking rates

Another stick to beat dairy farmers with is when it comes to stocking rates. Higher stocked farms, specifically those operating above 170kg organic nitrogen per hectare, are severely penalised when it comes to the marking scheme for TAMS.

Any farmer operating at or above 170kg N/ha (before they export slurry) is docked 20 points in the marking system.

However, a farmer operating at 169kg N/ha is only docked 1.69 marks. This is a very clear signal from the Government that they don’t want to support farmers operating within the confines of a nitrates derogation.

So, on the one hand, the Government is asking the European Commission to maintain Ireland’s nitrates derogation but on the other hand it is trying its best to block derogation farmers who are looking to improve their holdings from receiving any grant aid under CAP and Irish Exchequer funding. Why?

Based on the above, any Chinese journalist listening to the minister would be right to ask “how come if Irish dairy is so sustainable, you are not supporting your Irish dairy farmers?”

Contrast the funding available for dairy farmers in TAMS to that available for pig and poultry farmers.

The typical pig farm is a multimillion euro business with an average of 9,000 pigs per farm

A pig farmer has an investment ceiling of €500,000 to construct a new pig shed – they could double or treble their herd size and get supported in doing so under TAMS.

There are no restrictions on size, so a pig farmer with 2,000 sows is fully entitled to claim TAMS grants and doesn’t need to show that they have 10% more slurry storage than required.

Farm size

The marking system for applicants under the pig and poultry scheme doesn’t penalise on farm size, whereas it does for entry into most other TAMS.

Bizarrely, pig and poultry farmers get more marks the more intensive they are in terms of organic nitrogen per hectare – the opposite to all other categories.

A casual observer could easily assume that by its actions, the Irish Government is saying that pig farming, by virtue of the supports available to the sector, is more sustainable than dairy farming.

Despite the fact that pig farms import most of their feed and export nearly all of their slurry and operate under Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) licences.

There is of course a huge income difference between a pig and a dairy farmer and this should also be taken into account when making comparisons.

The typical pig farm is a multimillion euro business with an average of 9,000 pigs per farm, whereas a typical dairy farm has 90 cows making an average profit of around €600/cow before own labour.

This is not the only Government policy which stands to penalise the dairy sector.

The incoming dairy retirement scheme is a return to milk quotas by the back door and proposed changes to the tax reliefs on leased land are specifically designed to handicap dairy farmers in the land rental market.

It is really frustrating to see a Fianna Fáil- and a Fine Gael-led government using policy instruments to treat dairy farmers like pariahs.

In the same breath, if the 17,000 dairy farmers in Ireland got the same representation as the 230 pig farmers have, then maybe the Government wouldn’t be let get away with it.