It’s opportune that we recognise the important milestones so, if nothing else, this 75th birthday serves to remind us why the Irish Farmers Journal is important to farmers and rural Ireland.

I might very well be biased. However, I feel the role of the Irish Farmers Journal is as important today as it was 75 years ago. Amid the noise, clatter and bang of modern Ireland, our team attempts to curate the important stories in food, farming and rural Ireland in print and online.

With a growing commercialisation of content, multiple publishers and many different platforms, it is almost more difficult to keep up with developments as they happen.

The relevance and independence of our content is as important today as it was 75 years ago.

Led the charge

Those who have gone before us led the charge to make the foundations for what the Irish Farmers Journal is today. Indeed, some of the initiatives that were conceived some 75 years ago are today reinvented in modern ways. Listening to farm news on the radio was important 75 years ago, and today our range of podcasts is growing our audience and reach every week.

Interestingly, in the very early years some 75 years ago, the Irish Farmers Journal was delivered farm to farm by bicycle. Today, home delivery of the print product on a Thursday morning is our fastest-growing initiative.

Demonstration farms were a feature of the early Irish Farmers Journal in the 1950s and 1960s and today remain central to what we set out to achieve.

Tullamore Farm, as our central suckler and sheep farm, provides an opportunity for those in the sector to see the achievements, hear the mistakes, and walk the ground. It allows farmers to compare, in complete transparency, with what they have at home and potentially what they could do.

When Stephen Cullinan started out as editor-in-charge some 75 years ago for the eight-page magazine called the Young Farmers Journal, I expect little did he think that 75 years later, it would still be going stronger than ever.

None of this would be possible without the leaders and teams of contributors, farmers and staff members

Now, publishing in excess of 150 pages each week with regular supplements, it makes the Irish Farmers Journal a significant learning, entertaining and diversified product. Not alone that but on any given day, the Irish Farmers Journal online is delivering breaking news on its FarmersJournal live app and continuously updated website.

None of this would be possible without the leaders and teams of contributors, farmers and staff members, who each day produce curated content on food, farming and rural issues.

Farm performance

Each week, we highlight the challenges, drive for change, celebrate the champions and relate Irish farm performance with the best international and global performance.

Paddy O’Keeffe, Matt Dempsey, and Justin McCarthy led from the front for the last 75 years in building the role and purpose of the Irish Farmers Journal into what it is today.

The trio of John Mooney, Paddy O’Keeffe and Michael Dillon started as the first three staff members almost 75 years ago to lead ‘a causes and campaign’ initiative that survives to this day.

The evolution of the grass-based livestock system from the dominance of the pig and poultry farms back then has been exceptional.

When the western drainage scheme of the late 1970s was being developed, little did we think the explosion of suckler, sheep and dairy farms, raised predominantly on grass, would be so widespread.

The tillage sector has also thrived. John Dardis in the 1970s developed and promoted the benefits of winter grain and the advice remains as important today as it was then.

To all those who have made the Irish Farmers Journal what it is today, we say a sincere and heartfelt thank you.

As custodians of this special product, we strive to further develop, curate and campaign for everything that is good about Irish food and agriculture.

Without your support, all this effort would be meaningless.