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Co Down beef and sheep farmer Sam Chesney, along with Shropshire farmer James Evans, are featuring in a series of virtual farm tours and online discussion forums, which aim to demonstrate best practice in beef production.
In total, six events are planned. They will look at topics from grassland management to animal welfare, animal health and beef eating quality.
The events are being delivered as part of the EIT Food, a Europe-wide project set up to deliver more sustainable food systems. In this part of Europe, work related to livestock production is led by the University of Reading, with other partners including ABP Food Group, Queen’s University Belfast and AgriSearch.
At the first virtual farm tour on Monday, Chesney and Evans set out two very different farming systems, although both ultimately aim to maximise production off grazed grass.
Chesney operates at a very high stocking rate of up to 3.4 livestock units per hectare, running around 130 suckler cows, with calves taken to slaughter, and 100 breeding ewes. He has also recently introduced 100 calves to be finished under ABP’s Blade Farming model at a fixed price.
Cattle on the farm are rotationally grazed, with red clover silage included in the diet of finishing bulls, and some grazing fields now turned over to herbal leys.
James Evans operates at a greater scale, and rather than push output, has sought to minimise cost in his farming operation. As well as a 900-acre home farm, he has a contract farming agreement on a 1,750-acre estate which is farmed organically. It includes lowland ground, forest area, and moorland.
Evans runs 400 Stabiliser cows, plus 600 breeding ewes. The aim is to graze for 10 months of the year, finishing steers and heifers off a grass-only diet at around 24 months. A significant proportion of the main grazing block is in herbal leys. See www.agriSearch.org for more details.
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