Joe Patton, Head of Dairy Knowledge Transfer in Teagasc, joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to outline the factors that will make dairy more robust in the future in advance of the Teagasc National Dairy Conference entitled ‘Robust dairy farming for future challenges’, which is taking place at Limerick Racecourse on Wednesday November 27th.   Joe discusses the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will make dairy farming robust, namely: grass utilised, understanding financials and cost control, excellent breeding, healthy cows, working efficiently and environmental sustainability.    Joe outlines the significance of grass utilised as an indicator of profitability on farms and challenges farmers to look at this for their own farm.    He then explains that cost control is another significant factor and encourages farmers to take a few days over the next while to take a look at the cost of running their businesses.   With an internationally-regarded breeding programme already in place, Joe recommends that people trust the science in terms of breeding in terms of milk production, fertility, maintenance and health.    A less clear cut area but important nonetheless, is labour and work efficiency with Joe challenging people to look at taking more time off from the farm.   He finishes by outlining that all of what he has discussed will lend itself to delivering on the final KPI: environmental sustainability.   For further info on the Teagasc National Dairy Conference go to:  www.teagasc.ie/dairycon24   For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast go to the show page at: https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/   The Dairy Edge is a co-production with LastCastMedia.com