I farm: “Tillage and beef with my wife Frances, I finish about 50 cattle and grow about 100 acres between barley and oats, we used to finish hundreds of cattle years ago. The farm is about two thirds organic. My son John also farms beef and tillage on the home farm as well as working his full-time job.”

Cattle: “I buy in stores at around a year old and finish them at between 24 and 30 months. I have a mix of breeds Limousin, Charolais and more Angus than anything else. All of the beef is organic. The beef goes to Good Herdsmen in Cahir and there’s a premium of about €0.80/kg to €1/kg on it.”

Grass: “The cattle have been out since the middle of March, we’re lucky we’re in a fairly dry part of the country and we have plenty grass. With organics you have to make sure you have enough grass and you can’t push the numbers because if you get a bad spell of weather, you can’t run to the co-op to buy a tonne of nitrogen. If I have any spare grass, I bale it.”

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Barley: “This year all of the spring barley is conventional and it is sold to a local pig farmer and dairy farmer. The barley was put in three and four weeks ago so it’s well up now.”

Oats: “The oats are all organic and they are sent to Flahavan’s, it’s only about 15 miles over the road. “Two weeks ago I sowed 40 acres of the organic oats so it’s just peeping over the surface now. The weather came good in the middle of March and the land is relatively dry so we got in ploughing then. The winter oats were sowed around 10 October.”

Organics: “This is our fourth year in organics, the first two years are conversion. I do see improvements in nature with more birds and insects around. I would definitely tell suckler farmers to have a close look at going organic as they would have their own stock coming on. We are happy we did it, it took a bit of thought but once I took the plunge I had no regrets.”