Partnerships, practices, productivity – IGA conference highlights

Kilkenny-based milk producers Katie O’Toole and David Fogarty were among the speakers at the IGA's recent annual dairy conference (sponsored by Yara).

The O’Toole/Fogarty partnership operates a 500-cow Jersey/Friesian-cross, spring-calving enterprise on a leased farm. Entering the lease in autumn 2024 was timely, if fortuitous. Milk prices were firm at relatively high levels for the first 12 months, allowing management practices, including grass and milk production protocols to be well bedded in.
There was much reference to the severe milk price reductions in recent months and how producers will manage their way through the period. With little expectation that price recovery will set in until well after peak spring milk production, cost-control initiatives to manage through this period were high on the agenda at the conference. To that end, the Kilkenny farm was used as an example of setting up a simply implemented management system, while prioritising grass utilisation and financial sustainability through volatile weather and price periods.
An interesting aspect of Katie and David’s career backgrounds is that neither are from farms. They both have third-level qualifications in agricultural science as well as wide-ranging experience through working on dairy production units both at home and abroad.

Fourteen-tonne target

With grass production and utilisation at the heart of the IGA’s raison d’étre, it was appropriate that one of the conference sessions was titled ‘Growing 14+ tonnes of grass’. More emphatically, the ability to grow these large tonnages of grass consistently, year on year, was a particular focus. There has been a drift towards increased grain-based buffer feeding to drive yields in recent years. Despite 2025 being one of the best grass-growing seasons in memory, buffer feeding has continued and increased. At a time of high milk prices, many milk producers justified the increased concentrate inputs on the basis that it increased profits. That is a contention that is not universally held, especially by leading Teagasc advisors and researchers. In reflecting on the year past and comparing it to the prospects for 2026, Teagasc’s Dr Laurence Shalloo emphasised the necessity of ensuring that all grass- and cow-management practices are focussed on minimising costs and maximising profitability. Grass production and utilisation are still at the top of that list, Dr Shalloo emphasised in his presentation. Another guiding light in the Irish dairy scene is Dr Michael O’Donovan, who also spoke at the IGA conference. With a background of engaging in grassland research, focussed on grazing management, including the incorporation of clover into swards, Michael had practical messages for the IGA conference attendees as they enter into a period of low milk prices, at least for the early milk production months of 2026.

Reality versus perception

If one was parachuted into one of the several dairy conferences that take place here, without prior knowledge of best milk production management practices, one might reasonably imagine that all, or almost all Irish milk producers operate at high levels of efficiency, taking on all the advice gleaned from many years of research into how to produce milk from grass in an efficient and sustainable manner. That, however, is not quite the reality. We have already observed that there is significant criticism from dairy researchers and advisors that many milk producers are overly reliant on buffering cow diets with grain inputs instead of maximising reliance on grazed grass. Concentrate input is well above one tonne per cow on many farms, and not solely those producing in excess of 500kg of milk solids per cow, which might, just might, at least mitigate criticism of over-dependence on concentrate feeding. Likewise, the formula to produce high tonnages of grass/clover from most soil types is well established.
The reality is that only a minority of farmers achieve productivity in excess of 12 tonnes of grass dry matter. There are all manner of reasons or excuses, depending on your perspective, including heavy soils and poor weather conditions. It is rarely referenced that the building blocks for achieving those higher tonnages of dry matter from ten or more grazings across the season are, in many instances, not in place, despite constant and consistent advice as well as practical research to back it up. We can divide the deficiencies into three main categories. Many of them were well referenced by speakers at the IGA conference, including farmer practitioners, researchers and advisors,
The three categories are:

Sward management is pre-eminent. Good quality grasses, chosen, managed and regularly renewed for the particular soil types and grazing and conservation practices particular to an individual farm and milk production system. Soil fertility optimised with regular testing and implementation of soil NPK and lime requirements. Minimising poaching, optimum post grazing covers and grazing timings are all second nature to well informed and motivated milk producers who focus on maximising milk production from grazing swards. However, we see a majority of farms which have sub-optimal outcomes in relation to some or all of these sward management practices.

Infrastructure is another area of deficiency on many dairy farms, despite constant reference to these essential requirements from the likes of Christopher Cahill, John MacNamara, and Kevin Moran, who all provided their priority requirements to run a grass-based milk production enterprise, in their contributions to the recent IGA conference.

Possibly the most important deficiency, because it incorporates many of the points referenced above, is an inability or unwillingness to adopt best practices on farms. Much has been made of the 7,500 farms which operate under the nitrates derogation. Apart from a cohort who presumably have ideological reservations about higher stocking rates, there are thousands of milk producers who are, it has to be assumed, more comfortable with lower stocking rates, lower grass and milk productivity, and for the most part, lower profitability. So be it, that is their right. We have yet to see a milk production model emerge from research that can optimise grass or milk production, or enterprise efficiency, productivity or profitability, based on low stocking rates, low grass production and utilisation figures, using inadequate infrastructures to optimise sward and cow management. It should be clarified that most of the critical infrastructure required to optimise productivity is basic. A good roadway infrastructure, well-proportioned paddocks, an adequate water system, and breeding protocols based on relevant data.

Operating without data

If cow performance data is so essential to optimise productivity and profitability outcomes, why are 6,000 Irish dairy herds not being regularly milk recorded? Acknowledged as the most basic tool for objective cow productivity and milk quality assessment, milk recording is not practiced by a sizeable minority of herd owners. The IGA messages are clear. Thousands of Irish milk producers either do not hear the messaging or choose to ignore it.