Eire has distinctive circumstances – temperate local weather, ample rainfall, and a convention of household farms handed down by way of the generations – that makes it nicely suited to feeding its cows a gradual weight loss plan of luscious inexperienced grass.
Grass-fed dairy has distinctive advantages, each to customers and the farmers producing it, particularly in contrast with different feeds similar to soy.
Pure color
“You must take a look at the butter,” mentioned Eamonn Lonergan, who runs Knockanore farm together with his son Ed. “You possibly can see a white one is produced indoors. However there’s nothing just like the grass, the inexperienced grass that we develop, to supply this beautiful yellow color.”
Grass-fed butter and cheese is, not like dairy merchandise from cattle consumed concentrated feeds, naturally a golden yellow color.
“The color of our cheese acquired higher and higher because it warmed up,” continued Lonergan, “as a result of it is nearly just like the grass was leaping out at you, you realize, and it is as a result of it is produced grass-fed. Pure grass-fed.”
The color of the cheese is because of beta-carotene, a pigment that’s present in grass-fed dairy merchandise.
“If it is . . . dairy cows on concentrates there’d be completely zero color within the cheese. If it is fed with grass fed it will be all the time yellow,” Sean Hogan, a researcher at Teagasc Moorepark analysis centre, instructed FoodNavigator.
At Moorepark, beta-carotene is added to cheese from cows fed with concentrated feed to supply it with color. “With concentrates it might be pure white until you added beta-carotene,” added Hogan. Nevertheless, that is pointless with cheese from grass-fed cows, which takes on the color naturally.
Vitamins ample
It’s vital to maintain monitor of the size and abundance of the grass cows eat, as a result of it helps them lots. “Final 12 months we invested in a chunk of apparatus that measures grass for us or permits us to measure grass precisely,” mentioned Knockanore farmer Ed Lonergan.
“These days farmers are suggested to be measuring grass as soon as every week or much more usually so that you simply’re staying updated and also you’re being as sustainable as attainable, as a result of the extra grass you may get into cows’ diets, the extra they’re exterior, the much less you are feeding.
“So you realize it is good for the cow, it is good for the farmer, it is good for the atmosphere as nicely.” Environmental advantages come from the relative sustainability of grass in comparison with feeds similar to soy, a recognized contributor to deforestation.
Making certain cows get contemporary grass, not ‘stemmy’ grass, additionally improves their well being, in flip maximising milk yield. “That is why grass measuring has grow to be so vital for Ed and all Irish dairy farmers,” mentioned Eamonn. “You must keep on prime of how your grass goes and in addition keep on prime of the vitamins that your cow is getting,” added Ed.
Whereas conventional feed similar to soy and rapeseed are increased in protein, grass supplies the cow with quite a lot of the vitamins they want.
“If [a farmer] needs to place in additional soya, it should price him extra money [and give him a] increased carbon footprint so we’re attempting to cut back it, and you do not want it as a result of there’s a great deal of protein within the grass,” mentioned John Kerrisk, Space Gross sales supervisor for Kerry Meals.
Saving cash
Grass is ample, and low cost. In contrast with silage, which Arthur O’Leary, a farmer at Kerry Meals Farm, estimates prices round 16 cents per kilo, and concentrated feed which might price round 32 cents per kilo, grass prices roughly 8 cents per kilo.
Moreover, grass, when changed into silage, loses vitality content material, making it much less environment friendly as a gas for cows. Because of this grass is each cheaper and extra environment friendly than sileage.
“So what’s going to you feed your cows? You may feed contemporary grass,” Kerry Meals Farm’s Conor O’Leary mentioned. “That is the monetary figures behind it, that is the true driver of the grass-based system, so for farmers utilizing sileage, an excessive amount of sileage or concentrated feed, sadly, just isn’t earning profits.”
“It simply cuts down on expense,” added Arthur, “it is simply a lot cheaper to supply the milk off the grass. If we’ve to maintain [the cows] inside feeding them concentrates and stuff like that, they’re inside for longer, whereas they’re inside they’re producing slurry, that slurry needs to be put again out within the fields once more which is an additional price. So the shorter they’re inside, the extra worthwhile it’s for us.”
Having an abundance of grass additionally kills two birds with one stone, as they will squirrel away some stemmy grass for the winter months the place cows usually are not grazing. Concentrated feed will generally be resorted to in dangerous instances, however it’s not one thing farmers love to do.
“If you happen to get a drought otherwise you get dangerous climate,” mentioned Kerrisk, “you may need to feed additional concentrated feed, however should you’re feeding additional concentrated feed at 32 cents a kilo vs. 8 cent a kilo, a kilo’s costing you cash.”
Excessive requirements
To make sure that Eire’s popularity for grass-fed dairy stays intact, Bord Bia, the Irish Meals Board, conducts a Grass Fed Commonplace to make sure there may be proof to assist any declare a producer makes that its livestock is grass fed.
Milk permitted by the usual should be produced on farms licensed by Bord Bia, and every farmer should bear an audit to make sure that they match the standards. The auditor will each observe the manufacturing technique of the milk, and look by way of data to make sure the cows are grass fed. This will probably be adopted by surveillance audits at the least as soon as each 12 months.
The minimal grass-fed determine for a gaggle of herds to qualify is 95%, and for a person herd 90%. Animals should be allowed to graze outside for almost all of the 12 months. No grass-fed product should be combined with non-grass-fed product.
Grass Fed Commonplace labels the product as grass fed, certifying that the cows have undertaken a grass-based weight loss plan.
