The launch of AgNav for tillage farmers at the Crops & Technology event on Wednesday this week marks a great step in attempting to differentiate Irish grain from its global competitors.

Other countries have advantages in the tillage sector like scale that we simply don’t or won’t have in Ireland. Hence, activating our yield advantage and further reducing inputs must be our calling card.

Hopefully the AgNav tool for tillage can further inform the sector about the sustainability advantage Irish grain and crops have, which can bring a marketing advantage of which a proportion must get back to the primary producers – the grain farmers.

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We were delighted to partner with Teagasc at this week’s Crops & Technology event in Oakpark. It highlighted the advancements in spray technology that have the potential to reduce inputs and make more targeted usage of sprays a reality on Irish farms.

That technology was available twenty years ago, but now it has been refined and is more widely available and in real use on Irish farms.

This technology has advantages across the farming sector – not just the tillage sector – grassland farmers have a long running battle with docks.

If contractors take this new spot spray technology and innovation on board, the grass check that is normally associated with spraying the whole grass crop becomes a thing of the past.

When the spray toolbox is already limited, this should prolong the usage of existing sprays and overall, help to reduce costs at farm level.