The Beef Brief: Winter beef and tillage in County Cavan

The Beef Brief: Winter beef and tillage in County Cavan
June 4, 2025 5:03 pm
In this limited podcast series produced by Agriland, technical beef journalist Breifne O'Brien travels around the country talking to beef farmers about the challenges they currently face and how they run their farm.
On today's episode, Breifne meets up with Co. Cavan farmer Sam Hill to find out exactly what 'sustainability' means to him and why this approach has made him an award-winning farmer.
The Beef Brief goes behind the scenes to find out what works for beef farmers and what makes the difference.

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Study aims to improve gender balance in agri and rural reporting

Agriland

8 hours ago

Agriland

Study aims to improve gender balance in agri and rural reporting

A research project is aiming to promote better gender balance when it comes to coverage of agricultural and rural issues in the media. Over the coming 12 months, the 'Time to be Seen' project will work to identify how both women and men are represented in the media when it comes to these topics. It will raise awareness in cases where women are omitted from this coverage or misrepresented and how this can be addressed. The project is also aiming to develop resources to promote women's participation and representation in Irish mainstream media coverage of farming and rural matters. Dr Muireann Prendergast (third from left) with farmers and journalists who took part in the Agri Rural Media Forum in Limerick Dr Muireann Prendergast, a postdoctoral researcher based at the South East Technological University (SETU) in Waterford is the principal investigator of the study. She previously worked as a journalist in Latin America and has recently been working on the Grass Ceiling project in Waterford which is focused on women innovators in farm and rural areas. Funded through Research Ireland, the Time to be Seen study is being carried out in conjunction with Macra and the University of Limerick. As part of the project an Agri Rural Media Forum took place in Limerick yesterday (Thursday, June 5) which brought together journalists and women working in agriculture and living in rural areas. The in-person forum, which was attended by Agriland, will be supplemented by interviews with journalists and rural women. There will also be a focus group held with farm and rural men to hear their views on the topic. Media analysis will be carried out to examine specific issues such as how female leaders in farm organisations are represented in the media. Gender balance Dr Muireann Prendergast told Agriland the project is hoping to develop guidelines and recommendations for journalists to promote gender balance when it comes to reporting on farm and rural issues. Training materials will also be made available through Macra Skillnet to help women develop their media skills and encourage their participation in stories. 'There a lot of social and cultural norms that are present in media in terms of how farming and entrepreneurship in rural areas is more associated with men than women, which is inaccurate. 'Women also make a huge, fantastic contribution to these areas as well. We just want to promote that their voices are seen and heard,' Prendergast said. During yesterday's forum, the rural women present suggested that a gender balanced media directory be developed to allow more women to feature in farming and rural stories on media outlets. Prendergast described this as a fantastic recommendation, adding 'we do find that more men than women tend to be quoted as expert sources'.

Listen: LESS not all plain sailing for beef-shed slurry

Agriland

21 hours ago

Agriland

Listen: LESS not all plain sailing for beef-shed slurry

The first episode of the Beef Brief podcast heard from Co. Cavan-based winter beef finisher Sam Hill, who took the opportunity to highlight challenges he is facing with spreading cattle slurry produced from beef cattle through Low Emission Slurry Spreading (LESS) systems. Farmers who had a stocking rate of 100kg N/Ha or above in 2023 are be required to use LESS equipment when slurry spreading this year. Speaking on the Agriland Beef Brief podcast, the beef farmer said: ' I have the dribble bar for spreading slurry and that's another thing I wouldn't be 100% confident on. 'It's good in wet weather but when the weather comes like this [dry] and you're spreading slurry with the dribble bar, if you're taking silage back, you're tending to bring some of it [slurry] back in with you. It needs to be very thin.' Click here to listen to the full podcast. The beef farmer explained that he has tried alternative LESS systems to comply with the regulations such as the trailing shoe. 'I had the contractor with the trailing shoe and I can see no difference with the dribble bar and the trailing shoe LESS systems. 'It puts it down that bit further but once the growth comes and if it's dry, the grass will suck up the slurry as well with it. I think that's something all farmers have to look at. The farm enterprise is unusual for the region of Shercock, Co. Cavan in that Sam is growing a portion of his own concentrate feed also which is fed to the beef cattle in a wholecrop mix helping to reduce the need for bought in straw in the diet also. This crop will be cut and ensiled as wholecrop for beef cattle feed over the winter The farmer discussed how the enterprise transitioned from dairy farming to bull beef and onto heifer and steer finishing and Sam talks through the pros and cons of finishing traditional breed cattle over continental breed cattle.

Agriland

2 days ago

Agriland