Professor Gerry Boyle:

It has. This is our best available information. It is given completely independently. We believe that is the situation and it has improved. In fact, a lot of farmers plan to graze for a lot longer this year if the weather holds up. Having said all of that, we are very conscious of an enormous range. One thing that I found travelling around the country this year is a huge variation on this very small island between the western seaboard, from Clare right up to Donegal - I made a trip along that line - and the south-east of the country, particularly Wexford, parts of Kilkenny and parts of my own county of Tipperary.

The challenge is to help farmers to manage a difficult situation that some will find themselves in over the winter. We have clear sets of protocols in place to help farmers stretch the fodder in the drying off period. We believe that with careful and proper management farmers can get through the winter. That is our view.

I am quite concerned that this is unlikely to be a once-off event because one of the predictions of climate change is that these kinds of episodes will be more frequent and when they occur they will be more severe. We are sitting down with our research colleagues and asking how we need to adjust the recommendations around the farm model, which is most resilient, given the expectation that these events will be more frequent.