Meet John & Joan Stephenson: Ireland's longest serving organic dairy farmers?

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Meet John & Joan Stephenson: Ireland's longest serving organic dairy farmers?

I spoke to Waterford organic dairy farmer John Stephenson, who with his wife Joan, has been organic longer than possibly any organic diary farmer in Ireland.

Oliver Moore: Tell me about your farm John.

John Stephenson: The farm is here in Waterford, in Kilmeaden . We run 43 to 44 cows, on about 100 acres. It’s in two blocks - 70 acres and 30 - very close to the N25. Breed wise, mostly its friesian cows, with some shorthorn - diary shorthorn - brought in recently. We're hoping that this change will make the herd easier to maintain with the Irish climate and the heavier land we have here. 70-80% of the land here is level, there’s some boggy ground and it’s low lying. Continuous wet weather can be an issue, but in dry summer there's good growth.

OM: How will bringing in some shorthorn make it easier?

JS: With shorthorn, the idea is that native cattle might thrive better with fewer inputs. Dairy shorthorn can do well without relying as much on bought in feed. I'm not certain about output as of yet, we're only calving out some this year.

OM: How is output?

JS: The herd is only 50% shorthorn, we won't go further than that, but crossbreeds are ideal anyway, you get best of both. And what looks well doesn't necessarily milk well or visa versa. Even size isn't that specific, small cows can do as well as large. You could put a lot into breeding identical animals to no avail - maybe taking what nature offers is better option.

OM: So John? How is yield working out?

JS: Its roughly 170,000 litres over the year. We have a higher quota, but the new road development took some ground, so we couldn't keep going at 50 cows. Quota is going now anyway. I'm 55, all my life I’ve farmed there, but we were never going for high output. It’s not a big concern for us, our aims are different to other people. The solution nationally is to get bigger it seems – grow grow grow- it’s not possible for us all.

OM: How long have you been Organic?

JS I got interested in 1987/88, registered since 1990 with the symbol, with department since 93. People often ask: "are you still at that organic” we're making a living off it. We're not getting wealthy off of it but what's wealth anyway?

OM: Why, back in 1987, did you get into organic though John? That was very early, especially for organic dairy.

JS: At the time, the implementation of milk quota restricted the chance to get bigger. We saw other organic farmers and they caught our attention. I felt that there wasn't an opportunity to get bigger with quota, they trimmed it every year, reductions were coming in all the time, there were percentage cuts every year in quota. You had to rent or buy quota, we didn’t see that as an option. We'd have had to move around roads a lot - we're roadlocked - so there was a technical a more basic limitation too.

I reckoned I could produce the same amount of milk without the extra conventional inputs - that worked out.

OM: Is it still working out?

JS: Inputs are still lower: we don’t and can’t use Nitrogen fertilizer. The health of herd hasn't deteriorated. You get odd problems, like you do with every system. But there are no increased costs with organic. You get used to a system where you work more with nature, you know you have enough grass for the summer; even this dry summer you were never short of feed.

My father wasn't into it at first, he may have thought it was a bit cracked at the beginning, but he realised the living was the same so he got used to it.

The Little Milk Company website is here

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