Professor Frank O'Mara:

I want to add to Professor Pierce's comments. Our research herds have a very high EBI. The difference may be the level of concentrate input we would use in our systems compared to what would be used in the UCD Lyons Farm system. It is hard to say one is better than the other. The job for us as researchers, and for UCD and us as advisers, is to make every system better, regardless of whether it is a higher input or a lower input system. In general across Ireland our competitive advantage is our grass. There will be situations where it suits and may be the best option for a farmer to go the high-input route but for the country as a whole our competitiveness is based on grass. It is a low-cost feed. The competitiveness improves the more grass utilisation we have per hectare. This is what we are driving in our systems. If Ireland went to a more high-input system, we would not be any much different from countries in Europe or North America and we would have no competitive advantage over them. Our concentrate feeds are probably a bit more expensive here than in those countries. We must keep a very strong focus on grass. The more grass utilised per hectare, the more competitive our systems are. This is why there is a worry over the nitrates derogation. I spoke a little about this at yesterday's catchment science conference. If we cannot utilise high dry-matter production per hectare because of a limitation on the stocking rate, we will lose some of our competitiveness. Ultimately, there would be no reason for a farmer to stay in a high-grass system. If we move our country into a more high-input system, not alone will it impact on the profitability of the industry but it will also impact on our sustainability because we will have a lot more feed competition.

We will be feeding more human edible food to our cows. That is a concern from an environmental point of view. The more grass utilisation we have, the more carbon sequestration we have. We want to keep that very strong in our systems as well. The high grass system is animal welfare friendly. It is the kind of system that people think of when they think of dairy production. That is not to say that the higher-input system in UCD does not have all those kind of things as well but, in general, it is important that as a country we recognise the competitive advantage that our grass gives us.