Organic Dairying - A conversion experience

Kevin O’Hanlon has seen profits, biodiversity and work-life balance improve. Emissions have been cut by 25% – since converting a Wexford farm to organic dairying. Teagasc Organic Specialist Joe Kelleher and Kevin tell the story

Kevin O’Hanlon is one of the 70 fully organic dairy farmers operating in the country. As farm manager of the Marie Pascale-Pollard farm in Ballywilliam in Wexford, Kevin has overseen the organic conversion over the past two years.

“We’ve seen profits, biodiversity and work life balance improve while at the same time the farm’s greenhouse gas emissions have dropped by almost a quarter,” he says.

While the farm officially applied to join the Organic Farming Scheme in April 2021, Kevin had really started the conversion to a different way of farming in 2019. Having spread almost 100t of chemical fertiliser in 2018, he says he began his quest to see if he could reduce the farm’s fertiliser usage.

He reduced chemical fertiliser to 69t in 2019 and to 36t in 2020, before eliminating it completely in 2021. Cow numbers only dropped by just over 10% over the same period.

There are currently 155 cows being milked on the 130ha farm, compared to 175 cows before the organic conversion. The milking platform extends to 59ha.

Multi-species swards

“The key to maintaining cow numbers on this farm while simultaneously eliminating the fertiliser bill is our incorporation of legumes and, more specifically, clover, via multi-species swards, onto the farm,” says Kevin.

There is a legume growing in every field with the exception of the 4.4ha of fodder beet, but as Kevin commented at a recent farm walk:

“There is plenty of clover growing in that too!”

The whole crops all contain peas as the legume source and most of these are under-sown with multi-species swards, so there is a living bed of clover very visible at the base of these crops too.

Another key feature is Kevin’s ambition to grow more of the farm’s feed requirements. Prior to organic conversion, he was purchasing 1.2t of concentrate per cow. This is now reduced to 0.6t. “I estimate that the cows are receiving a total of 1.2t each of concentrates in their diet when the home-grown grain and the grain contained within the arable silage are included,” he says

Table 2 outlines how milk output has fallen by 25% over the past four years. This is due to a combination of three factors:

• fewer cows
• a reduced level of meal feeding
• an increased volume of milk being fed to calves

In organic dairy systems, all calves must receive whole milk for their first 90 days. For many farmers, this drop in milk output would be enough for them to slam the brakes on the thought process surrounding potential organic conversion. But the truth is that this is only part of the story. In the table below we have attempted to estimate what the financial scenario in 2023 would have been had this farm continued as a conventional farm, similar to how the farm was farmed in 2018. While the litres sold have fallen, the price received has increased.

Table: 2023 Conventional vs Organic Senarios 

Milk supplied to Glenisk

Kevin started supplying Glenisk last May and is currently receiving 45 cents per litre (cpl) for his milk. This price is a flat rate and there is no bonus for milk solids. Glenisk pay a summer rate for seven months and a winter rate for five months.

Last winter, that price was 70cpl and 60cpl the winter before. Taking all this into account, Kevin is esti mating a conservative average milk price of 50cpl in his figures, factor-ing in that the farm was selling its milk conventionally for the first four months of the year.

“By eliminating the chemical fertiliser bill and reducing the meal bill we have offset most of the financial loss in milk sales,” says Kevin. “When you allow for a reduction in milk replacer purchases and an increase in paperwork costs, the reduction in costs fully offset the reduced milk cheque.”

Increased profits

All cows are housed on cubicles, as permitted by organic standards so the straw bill has not increased. When the Organic Farming Scheme (OFS) payment is added in, you can see that this farm is financially better off by approximately €29,000.

Social Sustainability

This only tells one third of the story. The sustainability stool has three legs and in a truly sustainable system, these legs are of equal length.

Kevin has demonstrated that this farm is financially sustainable, but what about the other two legs, social and environmental sustainability?

Social sustainability is essentially the measure of one’s quality of life or the work-life balance. Since organic conversion, many of the workers on the farm have managed to take an extra day off per week. “I can’t precisely fully pinpoint why I have more time, but I find I have much more time off the farm than previously,” says Kevin.

Environmental sustainability

More money, more time off, more diversity and GHGs slashed by a quarter – perhaps there is room for a few more organic dairy farmers in this country

What about environmental sustainability? Plant diversity has increased significantly, primarily due to the multi-species swards. When asked what he defines as a weed, Kevin answers “anything the cow doesn’t eat” and adds that since he stopped spreading chemical fertiliser, the cows hoover up.

We know from recent research at Teagasc Johnstown Castle, that more diversity above the ground equates to more soil biology diversity below. Kevin says he has noticed an explosion in earthworm numbers on this farm, especially in the multi- species swards.

Red clover fields are humming with increased numbers of insects, bees and butterflies, and Kevin has also noticed a considerable increase in the number of buzzards on the farm.

At an organic farm walk in July on the Pascale-Pollard farm, Teagasc climate change advisor, Colm Doran, estimated that this farm has reduced its GHG emissions by 25%.

More money, more time off, more biodiversity and GHGs slashed by a quarter. Perhaps there is room for a few more organic farmers in this country. 

Crops grown on the Pascale-Pollard farm in 2023

Get more information on Organic Dairying contact the Organics Advisor for your area