I was in Russia in March and, while there, our group was given the Russian view of the Ukrainian situation. It’s fair to say that the EU was getting a significant proportion of the blame for what was going on, so the current sanctions were perhaps inevitable.

It’s going to be interesting to see the effects they’ll have and also to see what other markets we can target.

Meanwhile, it’s CAO offer time again and I like to see what’s needed to get into the agricultural science course run by Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and Clonakilty Agricultural College.

It’s a fantastic course that offers agricultural skills along with a business and science approach. Most importantly, it places great emphasis on the world outside the farm gate and what forces affect the farm business.

I was in the second year the course ran and, at that time, it was open to all applicants and numbers in the first three years were in the low 20s. By year four of the course, the numbers in first year had dropped to 12 and questions were asked about the viability of the course. To gain one of the 40 places available now, you need 350 points.

It’s often said that it shows the strength of agriculture with all the young people wanting an agricultural education. I would say numbers are up because the building site options of 10 or 15 years ago aren’t there now. Lecturers having to deal with students who don’t want to be there doesn’t help either.

August is generally a quiet month on the stock front. It’s slightly busier on the planning front as September approaches. Scanning, weighing and vaccinating are planned in advance as we try to minimise time wasted handling stock.

It’s almost to the point where I find myself figuring out what animals will be penned where for the winter and what levels of feeding they’ll be on.

On the two blocks nearest to home, I can move stock on my own. One is fully enclosed, while the public road has to be used to access one third of the home farm.

It took a few years to get a better handle on animal behaviour and stock management, but I think I’m on track. As I heard many times on my travels, “the animal is never wrong, but the person or facilities are”. It’s a fair point.

Rented ground needs at least two people and for comfort three when any yard work has to be done as it’s a longer stretch and busier road.

Fragmentation is probably the biggest stumbling block to improving work efficiency. The best way around it is running each block as a separate farm. This means running seven groups of stock, but is more sensible than moving them continuously between ground.

From April to September, little or no movement takes place between them, but come September, cows and heifers not in-calf are moved to the cull groups for finishing and bull calves will be moved to one of the home blocks to begin feeding and weaning.

The shed roofs damaged by the winter storms are being replaced at present. This should make for a much more pleasant spring compared with last year when the calving camera spent more time watching the roof rather than the cows.