FARMING POLL 2015: No change in milk producer expansion plans
Of the 194 dairy farmers in the survey who were asked how much they intend to change their output, if at all, nearly one in two (46%) of dairy farmers anticipate a growth of 10-30%.
This is only two percentage points down from the 48% of dairy farmers anticipating the same growth levels last year.
Just like last year, one in three anticipate no change in their farm output.
There’s still a minority with big plans, totalling 17% planning to increase 30-50% (compared to 15% last year).
The results are reassuring for the co-ops which carried out comprehensive surveys of their members in recent years, in order to more reliably plan their processing expansion for the post-quotas period.
With just 3% don’t knows in this part of the 2015 Irish Examiner ICMSA farming survey, the co-op managers can rest assured that dairy farmers aren’t about to change horses in mid-stream.
Nor is there any sign of a charge by non-dairy farmers into milk production.
In the survey, 375 of them were asked would they consider going into dairy. The answer is No from 93% — the very same result as in last year’s survey, with only 2% don’t knows, and only about one in 20 interested in dairy.
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Survey methodology
