I farm: “Around 150 acres that I bought as a greenfield site in 1976. It’s mainly tillage, with a mix of winter and spring barley. We have about 50 acres of grass, 40 of that for hay, and graze a few cattle.”

Family: “I’m married to Breege, with two sons and one daughter who all live locally.”

On the farm: “We have the winter corn all cut, it yielded between 3-3.5 t/acre. We bale all the straw into small squares. Farmers find them handy. Demand isn’t that high at the minute, but money is very tight among drystock farmers. They might be planning to just buy the straw as they need it.”

Evening work: “We started bringing the bales in on Monday evening when my sons finished work. They work locally and pitch in at weekends and evenings. The loader grab can catch eight bales at a time, the bale sleigh leaves them ready for that. With three trailers we can shift 1,000 bales at a time.”

Next on the list: “There’ll be a two-week break until the spring harvest is ready. The crop looks fairly good at the moment, but the price is going to be back on last year. With fertiliser up €100/t this spring, our margin is very tight.”

Sales: “We store the corn and mostly sell it directly to farmers. Saturday morning is our busiest time in the winter, rolling and bagging corn for farmers who are buying maybe five or 10 bags for the week.”

GAA links: “The two lads, Niall and Fergal, hurled for Galway. Our daughter Fiona won an All-Ireland in camogie. Fergal was involved with the Galway minor team that won the All-Ireland semi-final on Sunday. That was a great occasion in Croke Park.”

Quotable quote: “I don’t know how we can be expected to keep producing when we are paying more for our inputs, and taking less for our crop.”