Moorepark Research Centre has played a vital role in the development of the Irish dairy industry. Located in North East Cork in the heart of Ireland’s prime dairy region, Moorepark was established in 1959 by the Irish Government. Since then it has been the focal point of Irish research into all aspects of dairy production.
Since 1959 the average milk yield per cow has doubled and total output from the national herd has risen from 280 million gallons to over one billion gallons.
Moorepark is staffed by over 50 scientific and technical professionals, supported by an administrative and operative team. It operates 5 separate farm units totalling 320 hectares and utilises 600 dairy cows in its research programme. This is supported by modern laboratory and computer facilities, state of the art milking facilities and extensive farm buildings modified for individual research projects.
Milking machine research is also undertaken using first class analytical equipment. This unit investigates the relationship between the design of milking faciilites and milk quality. In addition, milking machine components are evaluated and a list of approved products is published annually.
The National Dairy Products Research Centre at Moorepark is Teagasc’s national centre providing research, development and consultancy services to the dairy processing sector. Working together these research teams address strategic issues for the Irish dairy industry, offering tailored solutions to specific production/processing challenges.