The Association of Farm & Forestry Contractors in Ireland (FCI), is staging its 2023 Conference on Wednesday, 6 December with the theme, ‘Farm Contracting in a Changing Irish Agriculture’.

The half-day event takes place at The Heritage Hotel, Killenard, Co Laois. It will open at 1.30pm and will include an introduction from the Minister for Agriculture, Food, & the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, TD.

The conference will include a presentation from Joe Patton, Teagasc Head of Dairy Knowledge Transfer on contracting in a changing agriculture.

Dutch Contractors Association advisor, Hero Dijkema, will report on how Dutch Contractors have coped with change. Tom Kelly, Cropsure, IGAS will outline the issues around quality assurance based on the IGAS experience and how a quality assurance programme can work for agricultural contractors.

This will be followed by a Contractor’s Den session which will include 15-minute presentations on issues such as Anaerobic Digesters Opportunities for Contractors, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (HVO), the Ag-Drive app for Contractors, how contractors can access funds from their local Credit Union, and an update from Herdwatch on the Kingswood app for contractors. Event sponsors FBD Insurance will give an update on insurance cover needs for modern machine technology systems such as GPS.