Dunphy Family Farm in Easkey County Sligo is a prime example of a progressive, self-sufficient dairy operation. The fourth-generation family enterprise has been expanding steadily over the past seven years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We travelled to West Sligo and caught up with Michael Dunphy to find out more.
Even before the abolition of the milk quotas was first whispered in the corridors of power, Dunphy Family Farm had embarked on a programme of expansion. Fifty-eight cows were milked in 2008; at present there are 232 milking cows on the grazing platform. The goal is to increases this number to 280 by the beginning of 2017.
Clearly the Dunphy family – comprising of husband and wife, Joseph and Helen alongside their three children, Joseph Jnr., Michael and Elizabeth – are making tremendous progress since switching their focus to dairy exclusively in 2008.
And, to a large extent, this has been achieved against the odds. It’s a fascinating success story, so we just had to find out more…
“It’s a fourth-generation farm,” Michael confirms. “My grandfather, the late Joe Dunphy, handed it down to my father, Joseph, and now all five of us are involved in one way or another and when our studies allow. Joseph has just graduated from UCD, where he studied Dairy Business, and I’m going into my fourth year of the same course. Elizabeth has finished her first year doing Radiography and is transferring to Medicine in September. Naturally, our parents’ investment in our education has placed a huge financial drain on the farm but we feel it will be worth it in the long run.”
My mother Helen, gave up full time work when we were young and runs two self-catering houses, one in the Village of Easkey and one at Aughris in Templeboy. She felt this would boost the income of the household and dovetailed well with the workload of the farm. She also does the bookwork and helps with the milking when needed.
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Regarding the expansion of the farm, Michael continues: “The grazing block at the minute is 90 hectares, with a further 17 hectares off-farm for silage production. Last year we leased 45 hectares from a neighbour adjacent to our milking block on a 20-year lease. This land is situated across a busy road and to access it an underpass was installed which allows easy movement of cows between both farms. This brings the grazing block to 90 hectares in total. We’ve increased the cow numbers from 58 to 232 since 2008 and there is scope for further expansion. We’re confident that we’ll be up to 280 cows by the beginning of 2017 but with the recent downturn in milk price and the outlook for dairy in the foreseeable future we will monitor this situation and only expand within our budget.
All replacement stock is reared on the farm – both calves and bulling heifers – and we produce our own silage. We are very self-sufficient. We have a lot of our own machinery here and do everything from slurry to silage, reseeding, spraying and associated work.”
Included in said fleet are 110hp and 90hp Zetor tractors as well as a silage wagon, rake, ten-foot disc mower, 1600-gallon tanker and agitator, power harrow, seeder and plough etc.
“We use a 16-unit DeLaval parlour with a 10,000-litre DeLaval milk tank, which we installed in 2008,” Michael points out. “It’s a bit small for the number of cows we are milking at present so we will develop a new parlour – probably a 32-unit one – inside the next two years. At the moment, milking takes two-and-a-half hours in the morning and two hours in the evening plus another half an hour for cleaning and washing up. With a bigger parlour, we’d be looking to complete the task in an hour and a half, with two people.”
Dunphy Family Farm has produced milk for Aurivo Co-op since milk collections first started. “In Connacht, there have been no restraints with quotas because our Co-Op hasn’t gone over quota since 1996 until this current year. During all of these years we purchased quota to satisfy our needs. Any expansion we have undertaken has still kept us within quota. We have land at the moment to feed an extra 50 cows, so that is how far forward we have projected for the time being.
The lease began on the new farm in April 2014 and during the whole of that year we carried out major works i.e. ploughing, reseeding , new farm roadways and the installation of a new water system throughout the block. As a result of all this work we were ready to produce milk off the new farm this year. The main body of our land is dry and cows can graze from early February until late November. We have a 100% Spring calving herd and we try to get them to grass straight away.”
Milk produced on the West Sligo farm is of the very highest quality, with a yield of 400 kilos of milk solids per cow per year, which Michael hopes will increase to 450 as the herd matures. “We produce clean milk with high percentage constituents: fat 4.2%, protein 3.65% and a somatic cell count at 180(cc).”
Like all operations, the farm has had to move with the times and evolve. “Since they changed the pricing structure that you are paid in kilos of fat and protein, that has driven the use of a lot of jersey semen in the herd. We are now 50% crossbred with jersey and 50% Holstein Friesian.”
At the end of the day, no matter how much you love farming, the bottom line has to be profit. The business has to be a viable one; otherwise it’s a total waste of time and energy. “You have to keep your head above water,” Michael concurs. “It can be difficult to get it right, depending on the milk price and how heavily invested you are in the farm and the land. You have to be careful not to over-borrow because it can really catch up with you on years where there is a price drop or bad weather.
“Cash flow is extremely important and has to be watched. You have to get your cost structures right and you have to make sure that you make money every year – not just on the good years. Ideally, you’d like to have a steady income all year around, but because we are Spring calving and dry off in mid-December, our peak income comes during peak milk production in the summertime, so we have to structure our payments accordingly. It takes a bit of work to get the finances right.
“Traditionally, we were a mixed farm with beef, sheep and dairy but we have gone down the road of 100% dairy since 2008, when we built the new parlour and shed and started to increase the stock. We wanted to specialise in one area to maximise our efficiencies and we felt it would be easier to milk an extra 40 cows than to have 40 units of beef.
“Things have changed dramatically in the last couple of years. We have gone from 140 cows last year to 232 this year, which is our biggest jump to date. We wanted to expand to get a second income out of the farm and also to be able to pay hired labour.”
Since shifting its focus to dairy exclusively, Dunphy Family Farm has come a long way. And one gets the distinct impression that there’s plenty more where that came from!
Dunphy Family Farm
Easkey,
Co. Sligo
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 7, August 2015
