I farm: “380ac in partnership with my wife Trish, and Mike and Cathy O’Neill in Knockanore, Co Waterford. We’re in partnership for about seven years now.”

Cows: “We’re milking 350 cows and our young stock are contract reared.”

Calving: “Calving went fairly well. We had a young lad with us for three months, which was an extra body around. We used sexed semen on the heifers and we’ll be doing it again this year.”

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Breeds: “We have Friesians and crossbreds. We use high EBI straws from Friesians and Holsteins which would have a background of crossbreeding.”

Milk price: “It’s disappointing but it’s the market reality. Unfortunately, the price of inputs hasn’t gone down to the same extent. We’re stuck with high feed, fertiliser and fuel prices.”

Clover: “We’re reducing our fertiliser use by growing clover. We also set some multi-species swards last year and bought a GPS for the tractor to spread fertiliser more accurately.”

Trees: “We were in REPS and over the years we set a good number of trees and hedges. We’ve a couple of ponds too and a boggy part of the farm is fenced off and left for nature.”

GAA logo: “Twenty-two local farmers have come together to sponsor the local Shamrocks GAA club with a sustainable dairy logo. They’ll get two sets of jerseys this year, the ladies will get two sets, and a financial contribution. We will be sponsoring Shamrocks financially for the next five years. Farmers are doing a lot of good and any time dairy farming is mentioned it seems to be wrecking the planet. We’ve had great feedback locally on it.”