Based in Coachford, County Cork, Murphy Family Dairy Farm is a progressive, fourth-generation enterprise that continues to go from strength to strength. We travelled to the heart of the Rebel County and met up with Donncha Murphy – who has plans to milk up to 150 cows in 2016 – to discuss the proud history and enduring success of this highly-impressive, award-winning family business.
Donncha Murphy and his father Con represent the fourth and third generations respectively of a traditional family dairy enterprise that has become an inherent part of the agricultural landscape of Mid Cork over the past one hundred years. However, while the roots of this operation date back exactly a century, the present incarnation of the business was conceived eleven years ago when the father-and-son team joined forces.
“Myself and my Dad set up a partnership in 2004. We were milking 50 cows at the time and we will milk 150 next year, so it has worked out well,” the affable 36-year-old notes.
Interestingly, the abolition of quotas will coincide with a period of reduced growth for the Coachford farm… “We will probably grow the least from now on because the quotas never restricted us anyway and we were always able to grow organically,” Donncha reveals. “Land has now become the quota. We are restricted by a shortage of land, which is very highly stocked. Indeed, due to very highly-stocked land and the rising age profile of farmers, I don’t think there is going to be any dramatic increase in milk production in Ireland.”
The genesis of the business goes way back to 1915, when Donncha’s great grandfather, also named Con, started farming in Derreen, Coachford. His grandfather Den Joe was next in line before Donncha’s Dad, Con, took up the mantle. Con Jnr. was born on the farm and has given a lifetime of service to dairy farming. He’s starting to take a backseat – reluctantly, of course! – leaving Donncha to oversee the day-to-day running of the family business.
“I finished Secondary School in 2002 and studied Mechanical Engineering but I never stopped farming and was at home working the whole time. We formed the milk production partnership in ’04 and the partnership gave us access to more quota,” says Donncha. “It has always been a family business. My mother Mary contributes a lot with rearing calves during the Spring and my younger brother, Tadhg, was also a big help to us when he was living here. Tadhg is working in Dublin now and our sister Eleanor is married and lives 15 minutes away.”
Murphy Family Dairy Farm is an exceptional business, which has been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards including Munster Dairy Farm of the Year. They were also runners-up in the All-Ireland Family Farm Award and have received a Certificate of Excellence from Dairygold specifically for the high quality of milk supplied between 2009 and 2013.
Mind you, the milk supplied is of a consistently high standard every year. Dairygold has been monitoring standards very closely for the past ten years and has a scoring system in place, where the highest score attainable is 55. Murphys of Coachford is one of a select few suppliers to consistently score top marks every month!
Although dairy farming is very much at the core of the business, Donncha and Con also offer an agri contracting service. “The enterprise consists mainly of dairy. We rear some of the bull calves ourselves and all of the heifers,” Donncha points out. “We do a small bit of round baling, mowing and stacking, and we used to cut all our own silage up until last year but we now get help with that from a contractor.”
The addition of new pockets of land, as well as construction of a new dairy parlour, have seen the enterprise move onwards and upwards in recent times. “We bought adjacent farms in 1999 and 2013, totalling 46 acres, all in one block,” Donncha continues. “We now own 120 acres and farm 180 acres in total.”
At the time of writing, there were 115 milking cows on the farm. “We have 46 replacements coming in the Spring and will do the same again the following year.
“We built the new parlour in December and will go up nice and slow,” Donncha explains. “It’s a 14-unit Dairymaster parlour and it’s working out great. We went up from an eight-unit to the 14-unit and each milking is now taking 75-80 minutes, which is about 45 minutes less than what it used to take us – and we’re now milking more cows.”
Donncha and Con undertake the vast majority of the work themselves. “When the contracting is busy, we have one man working with us and we also get a helper in to help with the cows occasionally, but generally we do everything. I do my own AI’ing and silage, so I’m kept busy. I was playing football and hurling with Aghabullogue GAA club up until recently and I thought it would free up a bit of time for me when I retired, but it didn’t work out like that… You start at 6am and between the milking and contracting you’re kept going. You could do around 15 or 16 hours a day.”
Murphy Family Dairy Farm supplies Dairygold with 500,000 litres of milk per year, with a herd average of 1,300 litres and a steady somatic cell count of around 100.
A keen contracting service is provided all around the Coachford area and Donncha operates a well-maintained fleet of four tractors as well as a loader, baler, mower, slurry tanks and ploughs etc.
Looking to the future, he anticipates a further period of steady but guarded growth: “Everything is set in place for the next year and we will go up to 150 cows,” he concludes. “But we are heavily borrowed after buying the new land in 2013 and don’t want to overstretch ourselves. I really don’t want to put too much pressure on the set-up.
“Also, my Dad is 65 now and the business is in transition and I don’t want to put any more pressure on him either. You have to be aware of the fact that expansion can come at a cost and balance is very important. We don’t want to bite off more than we can chew because quality of life is the most important thing. I’m happy at the moment and I love farming, so we’ll sit back and consolidate.
“So far, things have gone very well for us but you have to be prepared for a downturn in fortunes at some stage as farming is one of the riskiest businesses you can be involved in. The primary producer is the one who takes all the risks, so you have to proceed with caution as much as possible and try to guard yourself against any downturns in the market.”
Murphy Family Dairy Farm
Coachford
Co. Cork
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 7, August 2015
