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Findings from Moorepark ’25 – Irish Dairying: Innovating the Future

16 July 2025

Every two years Teagasc hold an open day at their dairy research facility, Moorpark, in County Cork. This year’s theme was “Innovating for the Future.”    

Since the removal of quotas in 2015, the dairy industry in Ireland has undergone huge changes, with an increase in milk solids output of 96%. This has been driven by increased cow numbers, stocking density, milk yield, constituents and more land being utilised for milk production. World events such as COVID and the war in Ukraine, have increased commodity costs for all dairy farmers, and in Ireland the cost of production has increased from around 3.25 Euros/kg Milk Solids in 2020 to around 4.6 Euros/kg Milk Solids in 2024. Teagasc are firmly rooted in maximising the proportion of grazed grass in the diet to create businesses which are resilient to these increases in commodity prices and can maximise long-term profitability. The Teagasc Blueprint sets out a range of future targets for the Irish dairy industry to achieve this goal across 5 main focus areas shown below:  

Innovating for the Future – Taking Stock, where to from here? Teagasc & University College Cork
Innovating for the Future – Taking Stock, where to from here? Teagasc & University College Cork

Applying this system to your own farm

Whilst this is built around the block calving, rotational grazing system, there are a number of these KPI’s which could be applied to any dairy farm. It is particularly interesting that they are putting more focus on improving efficiency to reduce labour hours and make dairying a more attractive workplace, as they struggle with similar labour shortages as we do in Scotland. 

Discussions on the day

The Open Day began with 4 discussion boards, where Teagasc staff set the scene for the theme of the day.  

  • Innovating for the Future – there were four main focus areas for the future; Famer actions around pasture utilisation & cost control. Industry actions around consistent messaging, career pathways & support initiatives. Policy actions around science-based decision making, long-term vision and stability. Research and Extension actions around new technologies, knowledge transfer and consistent messaging.
  • The Business of Dairying – how to make a farm an attractive workplace but adopting efficient practices & facilities, building a strong farm team, focusing enterprises and making use of contractors and adjusting milking intervals to make working hours more attractive.
  • Accelerating Genetic Gain - there has been a marked increase in the use of sexed semen on Irish dairy farms since 2021. Targeting sexed semen use on high EBI (Estimated Breeding Index) animals, heifers and early calving cows will increase the rate of genetic gain. While sexed semen use has increased, the use of beef semen has increased at a greater rate and there is a concern that the national herd is not generating enough heifer replacements to sustain numbers.
  • Grassland – route to 15t DM/ha – the National Farm Survey suggests that average annual grass growth is 9.7t/DM/ha, while the top 100 farms on Pasture Base Ireland are achieving 15.2t/DM/ha. Improving soil fertility, achieving farm cover targets, increase clover content in swards, improving grazing infrastructure and aligning stocking rate with grass growth are all key action areas for farmers to increase tonnes of dry matter grown and achieve higher levels of grass in the diet.

These four broad themes are then backed up with detailed research displayed across “villages” around the site which gave more in-depth information on how these targets can be achieved. The event is attended by over 500 farmers and is seen as the “go–to” event to learn about new practices and drive business performance at farm level. 

Future open days

For anyone who has an interest in dairying and particular grassland utilisation, this is definitely a worthwhile event to attend. The level of data collection that takes place nationally across the Irish dairy industry ensures that their messages are based on facts and the impact of change can be accurately modelled. The applied research undertaken by Teagasc ensures that farmers are able to make informed decisions when adopting new technologies. For more information on the recent Moorepark Open day and their previous events please see the following link:

Moorepark Open Day - Teagasc | Agriculture and Food Development Authority

Alison Clark, alison.clark@sac.co.uk 

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