Professional Documents
Culture Documents
cent/litre.
Milk production in Ireland is mainly based on spring calving system. The reason for this is because grazed grass is the lowest cost feed and can make up a large propotion of the diet over a long grazing season. Most countries in the EU have a 6 months or longer period when cheap production based on grazed grass can not occur.In Ireland in dry southern parts this is reduced to less than 3 months. At present,seasonality of supply is a major reducing factor of efficiency. Peak deliveries during the peak supply month (May) are six more higher in volume,than in the lowest production month (January). The other limiting factor of the increased milk production on many dairy farm is the farm structure. Land purchase price will continue to be high for the future,therefore the importance of the long-term leasing increased. Many dairy farms have difficulties because of farm size and farm fragmentation. Failure to acquire additional land adjacent to the milking area will result the spread of intensive indoor high input systems which is undesirable from an enviromental viewpont. The Nitrate Directive set a legal limit of 170 kg/ha of organic nitrogen that can be applied per hectare ( a stocking rate of 2 LU/hectare). The imposition of this directive will result a relatively great financial loss at farm level in the future due to the reduction in dairy farm numbers. Therefore it is important that Ireland obtains a derogation of up to 250 kg of organic nitrogen/ha for these farms at higher stocking rates. The land and the quota link remains in the new Irish milk quota regulations,but some important changes have been made, which enable milk producers to sell land while keeping the quota. The amount of milk quota per hectare is not specified by the law, however a person may not sell land to which quota attaches if the amount of milk quota exceeds 12,500 litres per hectare,except with the consent of the Minister. The penalty in 2009/10 amounted to 28.66 c/lfor every litre of quota over the person's available quota including whatever fleximilk allocation was received. If a milk producer fails to make deliveries against his/her quota for two consecutive years, his/her quota may be deemed to be dormant, and may be taken back into the National Reserve at the beginning of the third quota year.There are a few exemptions to this: if the producer goes back into production early in the 3rd quota year.,if he/she sells the quota into the Milk Quota Trading scheme relevant to the 3rd quota year,or if he/she didnt produce because of any duly justified circumstances making production temporarily impossible.