Before Christmas, I got a phone call from the Department Of Agriculture to notify me that I was having an inspection the following morning and it would take a few hours. A very nice man (to be fair) said he would arrive at around 9am and suggested I check all the cards to make sure they were okay. “Fair enough” I said, knowing that I had nothing to fear as it wasn't too long since I completed the Bord Bia inspection for quality assurance and everything was in order.

Inspection

Next morning while I was busy feeding my cows, the man from the department arrived on time. I showed him to the farm office. He said he would work away there for a while. Half an hour later when I had finished all my jobs I called in to him. He was happy and asked to be showed around the yard. It was only at this point that I was informed that it was going to be a full cross compliance check.

Cross compliance check

He started by counting all the animals in the place, easy enough this time of the year I suppose, as all the stock are housed for the winter. Out of 189 animals on the farm, he found three heifers missing one tag, which were ordered straight away.

He then went on to measure every slurry tank, including dipping them, and checked silage pits for flow channels and that rainwater from roofs was taken away from the yard cleanly.

Next thing, he wanted to look into every shed and out-house. He was particularly interested in pesticides and gave me a good quizzing on all aspects of spraying and reseeding on the farm. I get a contractor to do all spraying and as he supplies all the spray, there was no issue there. I did mention the spot sprayer for the quad and also the knapsack, so he handed me some paper work to fill up to record the little can of spray I buy once annually.

Last thing to do was take a walk around the farm, looking for poaching or dung heaped out in fields or if slurry had been spread. Again no problems there, although he was slightly concerned about a few bales of silage which had been stored in a corner of a paddock and it was ever so slightly mucky from transporting them to the farmyard nearby.

Annoyed

All in all, I am very happy with how the inspection went, though I could not help but be annoyed at that fact that the department are not obliged to give the farmer any notice. I was due to attend a meeting in Dublin that morning, but given the importance of the inspection there was nothing for it but to stay at home and supervise the situation.

While I do accept that the best possible compliance check across any sector is a ‘no notice’ one, even 36 hours' notice wouldn't make that much of a difference on the farm and at least I could have given a timely apology to the meeting I was due to attend that morning.

Tom Dinneen is a dairy farmer in Ballynoe, East Cork. He is spring calving 100 cows. Tom is a participant in the Glanbia monitor farm program. See regular updates from Tom on Twitter @castlefarmer