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The cost of producing home-grown feeds on Irish farms

The cost of producing home-grown feeds on Irish farms

Unprecedented increases in prices of fertilizer, fuel and feed on global and Irish markets in 2022 has large consequences for the cost of beef production on Irish farms. Researchers* at Grange and Moorepark have analysed the costs of producing home grown feeds.

Peter Doyle, Teagasc discusses the cost of producing home-grown feeds on Irish farms in the below clip.

Unprecedented increases in prices of fertilizer, fuel and feed on global and Irish markets in 2022 has large consequences for the cost of beef production on Irish farms. The “Teagasc Grange Feed Model” was used to determine the cost of producing five of the most commonly grown feed crops in Ireland in March 2022 versus September 2021. 

  • Analysis of five commonly grown feeds on Irish beef farms has shown that the rise in input prices has led to an increase in feed costs between 22% and 33% in 2022 when compared to 2021.
  • Growing and efficiently utilising high-quality home-produced feed, rather than purchasing concentrates, which are also increasing in cost, remains the most cost-effective option for feeding livestock.
  • Grazed grass is the lowest cost high-quality feed source available, with clover inclusion in swards providing further opportunities to reduce costs.
  • With rising supplementary feed costs, it is vital that farms produce sufficient winter feed of appropriate quality.
  • Targeting high grass utilisation on grassland farms needs to be a key objective

The cost of all feeds have increased substantially. Home-produced feeds, and grazed grass in particular, remain our cheapest feed resource, with grass-clover pastures being particularly cost-effective. Following grazed grass, the costs of grass silage and fodder beet are relatively similar when expressed on a per tonne basis. Fodder beet has somewhat lower production costs compared to grass silage when expressed on a per unit energy utilised basis (although these crops have a greater demand for protein and mineral supplementation, which were not included in this analysis, when compared to grass crops). Purchased concentrates such as rolled barley remains an expensive feed resource, costing about five times the price of grazed grass (excluding land charge) on a per tonne DM basis.

Read more detail on 'The cost of producing home-grown feeds on Irish farms'


*Peter Doyle, Tomás Tubritt, Nicky Byrne, Michael O’Donovan and Paul Crosson