Despite the gloomy outlook for farming predicted by the Irish Farmers' Association on Monday, the farmers of the future will be well able to cope with the conditions in the next millennium.

The Teagasc Agri-Food Millennium Conference was told yesterday that beef farming over the next decade faced a healthy future and the removal of the milk quota system would aid the expansion of milk production.

Teagasc economist Dr Liam Dunne said that, while the number of cattle farmers would decline over the next decade, there would be no mass exodus from the land. "By the end of the first decade of the millennium, most farmers involved in beef production will have an off-farm job and will be farming in a labour-efficient manner," he said.

Dr Liam Donnelly, director of Teagasc's dairy products research centre, said if the milk quota system was abolished in 2007, milk production could rise from 1.1 billion gallons now to 1.45 billion by the year 2010.