Considering the poor milk prices currently on offer, reviewing the farm's performance is a necessity to see whether you are over- or under-performing.

Teagasc recently published its 'Achievements 2025' report, which sets out average farm statistics achieved in 2025.

Using some of these statistic as benchmarks along with your own farm specific key performance indicators (KPIs) will allow you to criticise areas of your own operation that may need work.

Farm performance

2025 turned out to be an exceptional year for grass growth, with the average dry matter (DM) grown up to 13.2t DM/ha.

This was up significantly on from the 11.4t DM/ha grown in 2024. However, we must take into account how poor the weather was that year.

By taking 2024 out and looking at the four-year average from 2019 to 2023, grass growth was still significantly less than 2025 at 12.5t DM/ha.

Milk production

With pasture utilisation hitting 8.8t/ha in 2025, milk production was booming with more litres and solids being pumped out.

In 2025, the average milk produced per cow increased by 6% to 5,999L, up from 5,674L in 2024.

Solids increased by 7% on ProfitMonitor farms, going from 481kg in 2024 to 515kg in 2025.

Meanwhile, the national herd was recorded to be averaging 465kg/cow at 4.36% fat (4.23% in 2021) and 3.61% protein (3.55% in 2021).

This put the majority of dairy farmers in a good financial position as milk prices stayed in around the 50c/L mark for all of the peak milk production, before starting to drop to where they are now.

Unfortunately, dairy farming is never plain sailing, production levels may have been good, but the cost of producing 1kg of milk solids rose from €3.44 in 2021 as far as €4.62 in 2025.

Concentrates fed actually fell in prices, going from 8.16c/L in 2024 to 7.41c/L in 2025.

However, fertiliser prices increased by 10%, with farmers spending the equivalent of 3.34c/L in 2025 compared to 3.05c/L in 2024.

The cost of leased land this fertiliser was being spread on also seemed to increase by 9%.

Farm labour hiked up from 2.46c/L in 2024 to to 2.65c/L in 2025, while contractor services also rose by 0.16c/L.

Meanwhile, seed spray and fertility costs went up from 0.51c/L to 0.63c/L, while repairs and maintenance rose by 0.14c/L

This all resulted in the whole farm cash flow ratio dropping from 56% to 52% over the year.

What's working well?

In 2025, ProfitMonitor farms reported that they were working 69 hours a week rather than the 78 hours worked in 2024.

Breeding is consistently improving, which can be seen as the Economic Breeding Index (EBI) has gone from €170 in 2021 to €107 in 2025 (€204 when base change is included).

Meanwhile, commercial beef value (CBV) went from €30 in 2021 to €77 in 2025.

A larger emphasis has been put on sexed semen to achieve these results, with 400,000 sexed straws used in 2025 compared to the 280,000 used in 2023.

This has also led to an increase in dairy beef straws, with 700,000 used in 2025 compared to 400,000 in 2021.

However, calving intervals have actually slipped from 385 days to 386 days, with mortality recorded at 1.1% at birth and 2.5% at 28 days-of-age.

Improvements

At the end of the day, whether you are over-preforming or under-preforming compared to the average farm, improvements are always needed.

Farmers should be asking themselves the following questions as the 2026 season well and truly kicks off to help maximise margins;

Am I overstocked on the farm?
Am I maximising the number of days at grass?
Did I feed too many concentrates?
Are all my paddocks performing, do I need to reseed?
What paddocks need work in terms of nutrients and lime?
Is the herd achieving their milk solids target?
Am I milk recording and if not, should I be?
Am I happy with the cell counts?
Am I happy with how the calving and breeding season went?
Are all the cows pulling their weight?

Remember, grass and cows should always be the number one priority on every farm, everything else is considered extra.

Careful and critical decisions will need to be made this spring to ensure the farm is running efficiently as possible while maximising its margins.