"I had an epiphany during the week...”

“Oh yeah? Were you waiting long in casualty?”

***

There exists almost 80,000 beef producers in Ireland today. That’s a Westlife concert full of people operating in an industry where the average farm income doesn’t provide enough disposable income to pay for a ticket.

They say that beef farmers are too old, that we can’t manage grass and that our cows aren’t fit for purpose. They’re probably right.

Okay, so where does one start? Because this is the hardest part – accepting weaknesses and stoking the fires of change.

What are ours?

Back to the epiphany. It came whilst driving across the parish – a place strewn with beef farmers both big and small, honours students and underachievers alike.

Nose cocked, eyebrows raised, keeping half-an-eye on the road – who doesn’t peer over the ditches to see how the other half lives?

That week, I’d been doodling on a whiteboard whenever the chance came. What was our next port-of-call going to be? What needed fixing?

As I hit home, it hit home.

Good farmers focus on their animals. Great farmers focus on their farms.

There are thousands of good beef farmers: stockmen through-and-through, who can produce excellent animals and whose husbandry skills are unrivalled. But, great farmers place priority on their farms. Their animals are shaped to suit the farm upon which they roam – a farm primed to produce to its potential.

Are there many great farmers round here? Though my stock at Sunday mass will tumble, I’ll say no.

Are there many anywhere?

At home, we must first achieve goodness before aiming for anything more. Our calving interval is creeping down nicely, hauling with it our average calving date. As it stands our mean day will be almost a fortnight ahead of last year. That is, once repeats are kept to a minimum.

I’ll say a prayer to St. Repeatus - if they let me into the church...