Established in 1989, the Irish Milk Quality Co-operative Society (IMQCS) is dedicated to the improvement of milk quality by achieving the highest possible standards in the installation, servicing and testing of milking machines. In recent years, IMQCS has focussed on broader areas of milk quality as well as providing training and certification of technicians.

The IMQCS Committee, which directs the work of the Society, is comprised of representatives from the dairy co-ops, milking machine technicians, milking machine manufactures and Teagasc. ICOS provides a Chairman and Secretary. Mr. Jerry Long from Drombane Co-op and the ICOS Dairy Committee Chairman is the current Chairman of the IMQCS.

A critical role of the IMQCS is to provide training for new milking machine technicians to comply with IMQCS guidelines and ISO standards. The training is carried out by Teagasc and trainees have access to the latest milking machine technologies at the state of the art training facility in Kildalton Agricultural College. Milking machine technicians registered with the IMQCS are also required to complete a refresher course every two years.  Training and certification of milking machine technicians is also available to the milk quality advisers in co-ops.

The IMQCS has developed a user friendly manual for technicians based on the relevant ISO standards. In addition, IMQCS technicians are required to complete a milking machine test report and service checklist when servicing or testing a milking machine for a farmer. Of note, Bord Bia’s Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme requires a farmer to have his/her milking machine tested by an IMQCS technician.

Finally, the IMQCS maintains a register of trained milking machine technicians, which is updated annually and can be viewed at the following link:

http://www.milkquality.ie/documents/IMQCS_Website_Information.pdf

For more information on the work of the IMQCS, please contact Eamonn Farrell, IMQCS Secretary and ICOS Agri & Food Policy Executive at 086 0767840