Dairy Council

Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Andrew Muir opened the conference with an overview of the work he has done during his first year in office, including securing a ring-fenced agriculture budget, giving much needed certainty and reassurance for the farming community.

Recognising the scale and economic importance of the local dairy industry, he spoke extensively about the rollout of the newly renamed Sustainable Agriculture Programme (SAP) which he said would play an instrumental role in supporting the dairy sector and addressing the environmental challenges ahead. He spoke about the upcoming SAP information sessions and encouraged the sector to engage fully.

Christophe Lafougere: gobal dairy market expert Christophe Lafougere gave the keynote address. Christophe is Managing Director of Gira Foods, an international food and drink consultancy specialising in market intelligence and analysis. He has worked at Gira for over 25 years and in 2011 launched the Gira Dairy Club to provide analysis of milk production and the main dairy commodities in each of the world's major producing, consuming and trading countries.

Don Morrow: Head of Dairy, Pigs, Poultry and Crops at CAFRE also provided an update on practical technology being applied at CAFRE to help build an evidence base for delivering a more sustainable future for NI Dairy and how it is working with farm businesses to ensure that knowledge is shared with the current and future generations of dairy farmers.

Jonathon McFerran: DAERA Deputy Director of Green Growth Jonathan McFerran provided an update on the Sustainable Use of Livestock Slurry (SULS) programme and the potential to provide solutions for nutrient management, sustainable energy, targeted nutrient application and possible export of surplus nutrients once separated.

Jack Blakiston Houston: Managing Director at BH Estates is participating in the SULS programme Farm2Export project and spoke about his work to develop a phosphorous export product by mobile separation of solids from slurry. These solids are then removed from the source farms and fed into an anaerobic digestion process with the aim of reducing the amount of phosphorus returned to the soil in Northern Ireland.

In closing, Dairy Council CEO Ian Stevenson chaired a discussion panel to talk about DAERA’s Sustainable Agriculture Programme, the impact of the changes of Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and the role dairy processors are playing in supporting farmers to continue to improve their farm business sustainability and meet the expectations of buyers in the global dairy market. The panel included Dr Rosemary Agnew, Director of Agricultural Policy within DAERA, UFU President William Irvine and Dale Farm’s Producer Services Director Neville Graham.