Meet the dairy farmers: ‘The poor ol’ cow is being blamed for GHG emissions, yet we never hear about the emissions from the planes in the sky’
John Harrington at his dairy farm in Ballymore, Co Westmeath. Photos: Bob Morrison
John Harrington, Ballymore, Co Westmeath.
‘We have the poor ol’ cow being blamed for greenhouse gas emissions and yet we never hear about the emissions from the planes in the sky’
John Harrington from Ballymore, Co Westmeath is a dairy farmer milking 140 cows in what is a picturesque landscape in the midlands region.
John keeps most of the calves and has “a few sheep” as he says himself.
He produces one million litres of milk annually and supplies Lakeland Dairies which operates within a nineteen county catchment area across the northern half of the country.
The Group processes about 1.8 billion litres of quality milk every year into a range of value added dairy foodservice products and functional dairy food ingredients.
Meanwhile, John who has been farming the family land for many years says he has seen a lot of changes within the industry and expects more change in the not too distant future.
“I have seen the dairy sector change over the years; when I started out in farming many years ago, the cows were out most of the time,” he added.
“Then new sheds were built to house the cows; we increased cow numbers and bought some land.
“As the saying goes: ‘Get bigger until you get better’.”
Grass management is a big part of the set up in Ballymore.
John reseeds every year and over the last 15 years “every acre we have has been reseeded”.
He has also invested heavily in the farm over the last 15 or 20 years.
Last year he spent over €100,000 installing a new slurry tank and a milking parlour.
He also availed of grants to carry out the work.
“We have a 14 unit milking parlour now with its automatic cluster removers and automatic wash,” said John, before pointing to some of the challenges he sees in the sector.
“I would see water quality as one of the biggest challenges facing farmers at the moment even though farmers are responsible for improvements to water quality over the last few years,” he continued.
“The set up now on farms means there is very little pollution of rivers and lakes from the farm; nonetheless we are going to need more slurry storage, there is no doubt about that.
“Space for that is going to be difficult; but then there is talk of cutting down on cow numbers, so we will have to see.
“There are a lot of fellas around here milking 50 to 70 cows and they are not going to be able to afford to build all the sheds, etc, that will be required under the Nitrates regulations - that is another challenge to be faced.” John also pointed to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the concerns that many farmers have raised around that.
“With CAP there is more of a focus on the environment than there has ever been and of course convergence of payments is another issue.
“The question I would be asking is what’s an armchair farmer?
“I think that no matter what happens now, CAP money will go back to the man that owns the land.
“If a farmer leases land, the landowner is going to want his entitlements back one way or another.
“Probably the only way to get around it would be to make payments on a per head basis… “The thing with climate change is you have the poor ol’ cow being blamed for greenhouse gas emissions and yet we never hear about the emissions from the planes in the sky.”
