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The results of Teagasc’s National Farm Survey confirmed that the average dairy farm income fell below the €50,000 mark in 2023.
Dairy incomes faced a 69% savaging as milk prices dropped despite input costs remaining unchanged from their record highs of 2022.
The squeeze from both sides knocked €105,000 off the sector’s average income last year on 2022’s levels.
Some 39% of farmers in the sector received an income of less than €30,000, while one in every seven’s income came in lower than €5,000.
The survey found that the average dairy herd consisted of 95 cows across 44ha of land dedicated to dairy and fed 1.2t/cow of concentrate.
Teagasc research officer Trevor Donnellan stated that the headline dairy figures for 2023 point to an end to the sector’s era of expansion, a key point being a drop in the year’s milk yield for the first time since the lifting of quotas.
“There is a definite sense in dairy in 2023 of a levelling-off. Pretty much since 2012, dairy has been on the expansion road, we have had a decade of expansion in the dairy sector,” the researcher told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“Even before quota was removed, dairy was gearing itself up for the post-quota world. What we saw in 2023 was flattening off there.”
Donnellan suggested that a five-year average be taken by farmers when forecasting income and profitability into the future to negate “huge swings” in particular years.
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