No agri-show would be complete without the Irish. Keenan, MooCall, FarmFlo, Crowley Engineering, Fleming Engineering, Cross Engineering and Dairymaster NZ were all showcasing at Fieldays 2016 . They were supported by Enterprise Ireland.

Paul Kelly is the vice president of MooCall and it was the first time the calving sensor company was showcasing in its wears in New Zealand.

“(New Zealand) farmers are very interested in it, they’re very big into technology. We feel that bigger dairy farmers with the milk price the way it is, it’s very difficult for them to adapt to high volumes of MooCall but they would very interested in having one or two for heifers,” Kelly said. He added that distribution companies are “all very interested” and he will now slect two distributors to sell MooCall.

Listen to an interview with Paul Kelly in our podcast below:

Jason Cross told the Irish Farmers Journal that with the dairy downturn in New Zealand that it has been tougher to get direct sales. Cross did secure a distributor for his products in New Zealand.

“Everyone wants the machines, everyone wants to demo a machine but money is not available as you’d like it to be. We’re five years selling out here and we’d hope to have our name on the market after this year and when a recovery comes in the dairy market they know who we are

Seamus Callanan from west Cork has been working for Keenan’s in New Zealand as Australia for a number of years. Like MooCall and Cross Engineering, the downturn in the dairy market is tough for the company but, according to Callanan, they have see good growth in sheep and goat milking farms.

FarmFlo was one of the companies involved in the Fieldays innovation centre.

Near record crowds

Fieldays, which drew to a close on Saturday, had an attendance over the four days of 130,684. This was just marginally short of the 2008 record attendance of 131,000 and, despite the dairy downturn, surpassed the 2015 figure of 128,000.

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Full coverage: Fieldays 2016