Woulfe: We can’t keep pussyfooting around whole climate action issue

However, he said that not all stakeholders are “in the starting blocks” in relation to environmental demands.

“There is a serious obligation on the industry to collectively work together and explain to suppliers what is required to be done over the next seven or eight years.

“The biggest problem is that all stakeholders are not on the same starting blocks in relation to this.

 

Harsh

“I don’t want to get harsh on that but collectively, government, farm organisations, co-operatives, processors have got to be all together here on the one starting block and realise what is needed.

“The climate action plan is setting the targets but there is a deficit in detail of what is needed to be done and some don’t accept the targets. It is Government policy at this stage and we must collectively work together.

“We can’t keep pussyfooting around it. Because the later you leave it go, the bigger the cut and adjustments you have to make as you shove nearer 2030.

“There are 17,000 dairy farmers and five million citizens. If agri-business in its entirety is about 30-35pc of the challenges from a climate change point of view, we need to sit up and tackle it and get around the table and have a unity of purpose in the context of policy.

“It’s very hard from a farmer point of view — I pity the farmer as they are looking for direction.

“We need to sit up and realise what needs to be done. I don’t think the citizens will forgive us if we don’t do it.”

Chairman John O’Gorman said there is an element of frustration among farmers, with fingers being pointed at them.

“They are being accused of different types of environmental terrorism. All the stakeholders need to work together and clearly communicate with farmers and give them direction on the roadmap and how to achieve the targets which are being set down. We can’t stick our head in the sand.”

While he said he is confident Dairygold suppliers can reduce their carbon footprint to .7kg of C02 fat and protein corrected milk solids from the current level of 1.13kg, he warned that if it does not happen, “I have absolutely no doubt there will be a wheel put in the spokes of their ambition... down that road. It will come legislatively.”

Dairygold announced last week that its profits fell and revenue flatlined in 2020 as demand for dairy products in foodservice declined due to global Covid restrictions.

The co-operative recorded earnings of €53.8m for the year, a 4.9pc reduction on 2019 which the society said was due to exceptional non-core property activities that year.

Revenue came in at just over €1bn, essentially the same as 2019’s performance.

Operating profit was substantially lower than the previous year at €26m, after a €7m charge related to capital investment.

‘Introduction of quotas in 1984 was a defining period for dairy’

Tackling the environment is a bigger challenge for the agri-food sector than Brexit or Covid, according to outgoing Dairygold CEO Jim Woulfe, but is one that can be done.

If you were looking at the three issues of Covid, Brexit or the environment, the latter is the biggest challenge for the agri-food sector.

"Absolutely no doubt about it. And there is a serious obligation on the industry to collectively work together and explain to suppliers of what is required to be done over the next seven or eight years.

"We have overcome the introduction of quotas in the past, which was really challenging. That was when the industry had 72,000 milk producers, or more, now we have 17,000."

Woulfe, who announced his retirement last week, started working for Ballyclough in 1978 on a placement from college, before joining the co-op full-time the following year.

"I joined in 1979 straight out of college at a time of dairy expansion. Lo and behold in 1983 the whole issue around surplus products, butter mountains and intervention led to the introduction of quotas in 1984.

"That was probably a defining period and, certainly, our industry was not developed at that time. We were very much in parallel with New Zealand at the time and managing in a 31-year period with a cap on your raw material meant there was constant rationalising, cost cutting and refining, with little capital investment.

“It led to consolidation then."

Ballyclough and Mitchelstown merged to become Dairygold in 1990, as did others in the industry, and when Woulfe took over as CEO in 2009 he says the focus was on strengthening the processor's balance sheet and preparing for the deregulation of milk supply in 2015.

Along with the introduction of milk supply agreements in 2013, he has overseen the building of three powder factories, a new cheese factory, the regeneration of another one and the building of a new whey plant.

"It was something I was not used to during 30 years of quota — we never had someone in to open a plant as we were doing the opposite to take costs out of it."

Indo Farming