AQW 50744/11-16

Ms Claire Sugden
Independent
East Londonderry

Tabled Date: 11/11/2015
Answered On Date: 25/11/2015
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, pursuant to AQW 49704/11-16, how education and training programmes to improve efficiency and increase resilience to market volatility are being made available by her Department; and how many of the 157 dairy type farms in East Londonderry have engaged with this type of programme.

Answer:

My Department, through the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), offers a range of training and education programmes to all dairy farmers in East Derry. In the current year, in recognition of the issues facing dairy farms as a result of the low milk prices, a series of on-farm workshops and technical meetings have been organised by CAFRE. The focus has been on feed efficiency and finance as well as the importance of financial planning and cashflow management. All of the dairy farmers in the area received an invitation to attend one of the training events. I can confirm 38 farmers from East Derry took up the offer this year and 54 dairy farmers attended training last year.

From1 April 2015 to 17 November 2015, 19 dairy farm businesses have completed full financial benchmarking, and CAFRE is working with a further 16 dairy businesses that have either started, or are interested in starting, the benchmarking process. CAFRE advisers are dealing with a range of technical and business queries on an on-going basis including budgeting, farm cashflow, winter feeding and dairy cow fertility. A number of the farms are receiving one to one assistance from their adviser.

Knowledge transfer through Business Development Groups (BDGs) is a new training programme which is funded through the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programme. It will recruit up to 3000 like-minded farmers in group sizes of 15-20, and it aims to improve technical efficiency and business competence. I anticipate that the Groups will consider the systems of milk production which will deliver long-term sustainability for the farm family and improve resilience to price volatility. I would encourage all the dairy farmers from East Derry to apply to this Programme.