Wicklow auctioneer David Quinn claimed the lack of a successor was a factor in six of the eight dispersal sales held so far this year.
A lack of successors is a major factor in the number of dairy farmers exiting the business this spring, well-known auctioneer David Quinn has claimed.
Quinn has held eight dairy dispersal sales at Carnew Mart in Wicklow this year and expects to hold two in the coming weeks.
He said the absence of a successor willing to milk cows was a factor in six of the dispersal sales held so far.
However, Denis Kirby of Kilmallock Mart and Michael Taaffe of Louth-based Taaffe Auctions said there was no standout reason for the dispersal sales this spring.
Taaffe said the reasons were the same this year as always; a mixture of “health, too many birthday candles and succession”.
Similar sentiments
Similar sentiments were expressed by Kirby, who added that he had seen more reduction sales than dispersal sales this year because “a lot of people appeared to have extra breeding stock”.
However, Quinn insisted that the absence of a successor was increasingly being raised by those exiting the sector as the main reason for their decision.
“I’m not talking of a lack of a successor completely, but a lack of a successor who is willing to come back home and farm,” Quinn explained.
“A lot of the guys are in their early 60s and beyond who would have been milking cows for 40 years or so. And if they had someone coming up behind them, they’d be happy to potter away for another few years, I’d say. But the fact that they haven’t, they’re deciding to opt for the easier lifestyle,” he said.
Mitchelstown auctioneer Eamonn O’Brien said succession was certainly a factor in the increase in dairy farms being let in north and east Cork.
O’Brien said the area of land he has let so far this year has almost doubled to 2,000ac, much of it smaller dairy farms where there wasn’t a successor.
But he said the land was generally staying in dairying, with existing milk suppliers leasing the properties.
“There’s a rationalisation taking place in dairying,” he maintained.
“Without a doubt there are more people getting out than getting in, but the acres are all being taken up. There is a real appetite for land,” O’Brien said.
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