When tweeting as @Tweetingfarmers for a week, I was asked a question that surprised me – ‘What is the possibility of antibiotics being in the milk we drink?’ It surprised me because the person who asked is very aware of food safety and I wondered if people are reading stories in the papers of unregulated horsemeat in burgers and antibiotics in beef in non-EU countries and wondering if it really is like this in Ireland. Although farmers get the CAP [...]
Ireland’s winter has now been going on for almost 12 months – it started last May when we had to rehouse cows at night and with the ridiculously wet summer, it was tough going to keep cows out, cattle were in and out and getting silage cut for the winter was a challenge!
The fact at the moment is that numerous farmers are undergoing severe fodder shortages. Yes, there are farmers, mostly older ones, that weren’t aware the quality of their [...]
Here’s some tips for any sales rep hoping to make a sale with a farmer (or his wife!). By the way, it started out as ten tips and then became 14 or 15 – I promise I can count!!
Where’s the pride gone in Irish farming? Most American farming blogs communicate a sense of pride in their chosen career, in how they farm, their farming practices, their ability to produce food for so many people, the fact that they are a 4th or 5th or even a 6th generation family farm. ?Irish farmers seem to be stereotyped as looking for [...]
Have you heard about the cap reforms and wondered what it is all about? As you might have seen on last night’s news, 5,000 farmers travelled to Cork to protest outside Coveney’s office yesterday. We didn’t go – Brian because he had to milk etc, even on a Sunday, his ‘essential work’ takes 5 hours in the morning and up to 4 hours in the evening and that’s with me feeding the calves which still takes me 45-70 min per [...]
