Kilkenny farmer to headline National Dairy Conference

The annual Irish Grassland Association National Dairy Conference, sponsored by Yara, takes place on Wednesday, January 18, and this year will feature two speakers from Kilkenny.
Local dairy farmer Francis Nolan, will headline the conference.

A second Kilkenny speaker at this event will be dairy farmer and IFAC employee Noreen Lacey.

Changing Practices
The theme of this year’s event focuses on the changing practices required at farm level to farm successfully in a rapidly changing world.
Dairy farms have been given ambitious targets to meet both from a water quality and green house gas emissions perspective.

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Addressing these challenges is an excellent line-up of speakers who will share with us the latest research, insight and expertise on how dairy farms can navigate this new era.
The conference will focus on the key areas around environment and grassland management practices.
The conference will also examine the financial implications for dairy farms to meet new regulations.

Session 1 - Where to from here
New regulations around the nitrates directive and climate change targets will impact farms both in terms of additional costs and day to day farming practices. David Fennelly from County Laois will present a paper on how his farming practices will change over the next five years.
Noreen Lacey will present the financial costs of new environmental regulations. She will examine the scenarios facing dairy farms. In a time of increasing input costs are some farms financially better off with less cows?

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Future Proofing
Session 2 - Technologies to future proof dairy farming
With a growing number of technologies available, this session will focus on which technologies offer the highest rate of return in terms of improving farmers bank balances and their environmental sustainability.

Dr. John Upton will present a paper on energy efficiency on Irish dairy farms.
Francis Nolan will present a paper on his approach to on-farm investments.
Francis has made some key investments on his farm over the last five years, improving infrastructure and embracing cutting edge technologies.

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Session 3 - Productive Swards in a low Nitrogen era
This session will examine the grassland management practices needed to succeed in a low nitrogen era.
Papers will be presented by Dr Michael Egan and Dr Michael Dineen.
To find out more about the conference and hotel see https://www.irishgrassland.ie/

The IGA is a CLG and works on a strong value for money ethos for members. All delegates who purchase tickets to attend the conference can also attend a free networking event the night prior to the conference that will focus on Succession Planning. This event will be hosted by Paul Hyland Former IGA President and dairy farmer from Kilkenny.