Teagasc National Dairy Conference to Focus on Sustainability
‘Making Dairy Farming More Sustainable’ is the theme of this year’s Teagasc National Dairy Conference which is taking place at the Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork on Tuesday, 27 November and again at the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone on Wednesday, 28 November.
The conference will examine the opportunities for Irish grass fed milk products with industry speakers providing a perspective from the market. The lessons to be learned from coping with the weather extremes in 2018 and how to protect the dairy farm businesses from weather risks will be explored by Teagasc speakers. Research carried out at Teagasc Moorepark on ‘New insights to the feeding value of grazed pasture’ will also be presented.
With an increased numbers of offspring coming from the dairy herd in Ireland, Natalie Roadknight, from the University of Melbourne in Australia, will present a paper on ‘Managing all calves to a high welfare standard: the Australian experience’. Andrew Cromie from ICBF will present on the ‘The new Dairy Beef Index’, while Stephen Butler, Teagasc will talk about the role sexed semen can play?
A series of workshops will take place in the afternoon. Dairy farmers attending the conference can select 3 workshops from the list below to attend:
Workshop 1 Managing our GHG and ammonia emissions targets
Workshop 2 Grassland decisions made easy
Workshop 3 Coping with the spring workload
Workshop 4 Contract heifer rearing
Workshop 5 Building fodder reserves in 2019
Workshop 6 Making our dairy farms better places to work.
Speaking in advance of the Teagasc National Dairy Conference, Dr Tom O’Dwyer, Head of Dairy Knowledge Transfer in Teagasc said: “As dairy farms develop, there is a need to focus on sustainable practices, in terms of labour management, greenhouse gas emissions, fodder reserves, and animal welfare. The Teagasc Dairy Conference will present the latest knowledge to help farmers make informed decisions to continue the development of their enterprises in a sustainable way.”
To see the full conference programme and to register, visit www.teagasc.ie/dairyconference2018 .
