Almost a year ago a good friend asked me to judge this year’s suckler cow competition run by the Fermanagh Show.

Over the last few years, the Fermanagh Show has been running a suckler cow competition for commercial suckler farmers. This involves on-farm judging of non-pedigree suckler herds to find the best functional herd, which, in my interpretation, is a herd that will produce ideal calves for today’s market.

I was not convinced that I was the right person to be the judge. I feared I would already know some of the competitors and already have been on some of their farms, which ultimately might cloud my judgement. I thought long and hard about it and I spoke to some of the previous judges. Eventually, I gave in and said that I would do it.

I told nobody that I was the judge so as not to influence the entry, and up until judging was about to begin, I had no idea who had entered the competition.

It turned out that there were 10 entries and, as well as the overall best herd, there were other categories such as best calf (male and female), best outfit and best group of breeding heifers.

Approach

Eventually I set off on my two-day trip around Fermanagh. I decided that the best approach was to only judge the farms on what they showed me and what they said. Some of the farms I had been on before and already knew a lot about them, but I tried to block this out.

To be honest, I did not realise that Fermanagh was so big. Some of the farms visited were over 50 miles away from my farm in southeast Fermanagh. I travelled to parts of the county that I had not been to before.

Judging was also a lot more difficult than I had anticipated.

There was a vast difference in scale of operations and then there was an even bigger variation in land type.

We have some reasonable land where we farm, and I suppose I thought most of Fermanagh was the same.

I was completely wrong. Of the 10 farms I visited, they were well split. Just under half were working on better land than we have at home and these guys were doing an excellent job – I saw some really impressive set-ups.

Then there were the other guys who were working in some really challenging conditions. Some were farming on extremely poor clay soils and some were working on poor mountain ground.

I was impressed that they could produce anything from this land.

Overall, I saw 10 really good farming systems. Everyone was adapting their system to suit their land type and producing excellent cattle, with potential to grow on and finish at under 24 months.

Reality

When I went home, I tried to assess my own herd in comparison to the 10 I had seen and this was a “back to reality” moment for me. I would not have put myself anywhere near the top.

In my opinion all 10 farms were winners, but there were a few stand-out things. I was extremely impressed at the number of young farmers actively involved on these farms and equally impressed at the standard of animals coming from both artificial insemination and stock bulls.

But over and above this was the positivity from everyone.

There is so much pessimism around the suckler industry and even people suggesting that it is in its twilight years.

However, in actual fact, the suckler industry is alive and thriving in Fermanagh and producing the raw materials for our beef industry.