The Al Badiiah farm is located approximately two hours of Saudi Arabia’s capital city of Riyadh. The vast farm encompasses thousands of acres in the Saudi Arabian desert.

The Irish Farmers Journal visited the farm as part of a trade mission to the Gulf States organised by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed and Bord Bia.

Here we examine some of the numbers behind the huge Al Badiiah farm:

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  • 2m: the farm can hold two million litres of diesel to fuel its massive fleet of tractors and trucks
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  • 960,000: the volume of milk in litres produced on the farm every day
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  • 75,000: the tonnes of grain imported from overseas every six weeks
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  • 46,000: the number of animals on the farm at any one time
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  • 23,000: the number of milking cows on the Al Badiiah farm
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  • 2,600: the number of calf hutches for rearing calves on the farm
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  • 720: staff on the Al Badiiah farm
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  • 400: the tonnes of alfalfa fed to animals every day
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  • 400: the 13-month-old heifers on the farm are inseminated at 400kg and must be 135cm in height
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  • 275: the price in euro the Al Baddiah farm gets for its 14-day-old bull calves. The price was €450 in 2016
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  • 250: animals are fed 250t of silage every day
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  • 210: the tonnes of flaked maize fed every day
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  • 127: the busiest day on the Al Baddiah farm in 2016 saw 127 calves arrive in 24 hours
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  • 100: each week, 100 cull cows leave the farm
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  • 92: the number of sheds on the farm
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  • 52: the Al Baddiah farm has a total of 52 silage pits which are filled with maize silage transported from five hours away. Each pit is 84 metres long
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  • 52: the Al Baddiah farm has a total of 52 tractors
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  • 42.5: the Holstein Friesian herd is averaging 42.5l/day. The aim is to get this to 45l/day in the coming years
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  • 40: a tanker from the Almarai processing facility collects milk every 40 minutes from the Al Baddiah farm. All milk is used as liquid milk for the kitchen table
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  • 28: as well as the 52 tractors, the farm has 28 loaders for the tractors
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  • 23: the farm has 23 generators in case there is a power cut
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  • 4: the farm’s 23,000 milking cows are milked four times a day with the first milking happening at midnight every night
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  • 1: one Irishman, Tony Gavin, is the farm manager on the Al Baddiah farm. You can read an exclusive interview with Gavin in next week’s Irish Farmers Journal
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    Enhanced access for Irish beef

    The big news to come out of the trade mission so far is the enhancement of market access to Saudi Arabia for Irish minced, processed and cooked beef.

    The Saudi leg of the trade mission concluded on Monday and the delegation departed for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the remainder of the mission, with a series of high-profile meetings and events scheduled to take place both in Dubai and in Abu Dhabi.

    Read more

    Saudi beef extension small step forward