22-04-2025
Henry Walsh: It's good to be reminded that the world is not against us farmers
David Kenny, Teagasc's head of animal and bioscience research, oversaw a large gathering of impressive young people, many of them in research and all working for the good of agriculture.
Farmers can often feel the world is against them, but conferences such as this give great reassurance that some of the best and brightest young people are working with us to produce healthy nutritious food in a cost-effective manner while helping us lower our carbon footprint.
There were presentations on topics including gene editing, additives that help to reduce methane emissions and technologies to help us utilise our resources better.
Bursaries were handed out to enable researchers to continue their work on a range of subjects.
One of the challenges has always been to get research findings into practice on farms so that we can benefit financially, and the other is to make it commercially attractive for companies to invest in it to get it to market.
This conference looked to merge the two as private enterprise mingled with science and research.
Prof Michael Diskin, a reproductive physiologist, was given a lifetime achievement award for his work on fertility, much of it done in Teagasc Athenry.
In my early years farming there were so many myths around fertility. AI was not trusted on most farms.
There was often speculation at farmer gatherings that nitrogen fertiliser was causing embryo losses.
Prof Diskin's great work replaced fiction with facts as he systematically identified the key components required to achieve good fertility, such as a rising plane of nutrition and starting with simple achievable targets like the correct body condition score at calving.
ADVERTISEMENT
Our farm walk was very rewarding with a strong level of engagement by the delegates, who had a good understanding of what we are trying to achieve here.
The sunny weather helped the discussions, particularly around the role of pasture in our system.
I explained that one of my frustrations last year was the absence of clover from the sward in early summer, while this year the clover is visible and alive, so hopefully we can get it to contribute earlier in the season.
We talked about our breeding policy, from sexed semen to the use of the DBI index and how we are looking at the health traits with TB resistance in mind now because of our breakdown.
We discussed protected urea and indicated our support for it even though there is a lack of trust among some farmers in the product in times of moisture deficits.
Another topic was our approach to labour, and the challenges of securing skilled help.
We stressed the importance of a good working environment with labour-efficient facilities and the use of simple affordable technology such as the Batt Latch to let cows in from the paddock for milking without human involvement.
Henry and Patricia Walsh farm in Oranmore, Co Galway along with their son Enda
