Emma Dillon, economist and senior research officer with the National Farm Survey joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss the recently published preliminary results for the 2024 survey.

Emma explains how the survey works and how the 300 or so dairy farms that supply data to the survey are used to create a representation of the dairy farms across the country and how they adjust their survey to ensure it continues to be representative of the farming population.

Emma discusses the headline figure that gets reported outlining what has to come out of that for the farmer themselves and that it isn’t the same as the annual take home pay of a salaried employee.

Emma then delves into the increase in production costs, the shift in milk prices that have helped insulate farmers from this rise in costs and she looks at a number of ‘sticky costs’ that all farmers need to be conscious of to reduce their exposure to price volatility in future years.

Finally, Emma talks about structural change that is important for the industry and how this will need to be assisted through funding for generational renewal from the perspective of both the new entrant or young farmer and the older generation that also need security as they step back from their careers in farming.

The preliminary report for 2024 can be accessed here:

https://teagasc.ie/wp-content/uploads/uploads/NFS-Preliminary-Report-2024.pdf

For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/

The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com