Dairying ticking clock

Teagasc Moorepark has its annual dairy open day on June 18. With the theme of New Thinking for Challenging Times, it's a must for any dairy farmer planning on continuing in business. Highlights of the day include advice on surviving 2009 with continuing low prices, and there will be lots talks from leading dairy farmers.
The pain being felt out there right now is very real, and farmers must sometimes scratch their heads and wonder what they have done so wrong. We are among the most efficient dairy producers in the world, have a grass-based system that's the envy of our competitors, and have access to a vast European market on our doorstep. Yet, without a concerted plan of action the current downturn is only a foretaste of what lies ahead for our dairy industry.

Readers of this issue of Irish Farmers Monthly can be left in no doubt that this is industry is in need of a major overhaul and serious revision. Looking at what others, notably Denmark and Sweden, have done over the past number of years, the urgency should become clear. Irish dairying needs to stand back and reassess, not just where it is now, but where it wants to be in five, and 10 years time, and how it can get there.

The recent ICOS conference brought these issues into stark focus. It featured two speakers from Alra, a joint Danish and Swedish company, which is already a major European dairy supplier, and one that plans on being in the mix when retailer power demands just two or three dairy suppliers in Europe. The significance of this statement makes it worth repeating: when retailer power demands just two or three dairy suppliers in Europe. Alra has recognised that it's a question of when and not if, and, indeed, their very preparedness can only speed up the process.
Where will Ireland be when that happens? Unless we do something drastic we'll be stuck with 30 processors, still talking about milk prices and the cost of production as dairy farmers continue to lose money hand over fist.

ICOS, the National Dairy Council, and the main players in the industry, co-ops and farmer leaders alike, need to get to grips with the bigger picture very quickly. How can we rationalise the processing industry, and work together to build a single Irish dairy brand, which can not only regain momentum in its home market, but become a European, and perhaps global, leader in dairy production and innovation? The future of food production is about cost, image, and branding, about providing consumers with a product they want to be associated with and a brand they will buy.

Ireland has the basis for this, and we've done it before. Out of nothing, almost half a century ago, the Kerrygold brand was created. Yet its success, inexplicably, was largely a one off. There simply has never been the momentum or willpower to overcome the territorial cosiness of our co-op culture. Meanwhile, the Danes and Swedish have leapfrogged us to be one of the main European dairy processors. The clock is ticking fast on who will join them.