Hundreds of farm walkers see how clover is farmed at in Ballylooby

This week hundreds of visitors, from the young to the old, walked the farm to see how this food producing farm are taking steps to protect the environment.

It was clear for visitors to see the work put in to maintain and enhance the hedgerows, planting new hedges, and managing existing ones to provide food for the birds, pollen for the pollinators and shelter and shade for the livestock.

Twenty pollinators were found on the farm when the biodiversity assessment was carried out on the farm in 2022 as part of the Teagasc Signpost programme.

John Walsh outlined the care he takes when planting a new hedgerow, from selecting the plant mix, to the pruning in the first three years, and then the management subsequently to ensure a wide base, eight foot tall and whitethorns flourishing every 50 metres.

The adoption of technologies is also evident all around the farm. Clover rich swards allow less chemical nitrogen to be applied while small areas of multispecies swards, containing Chicory, plantain, white and red clover and ryegrass were planted two years ago to see what they can contribute to the farming system.

The herd of cows are the pride and joy of John and Brendan Walsh, this award-winning family partnership.

Brendan Walsh spoke about the years of selective breeding using the Economic Breeding Index (EBI) to make informed breeding decisions, which has led to a fine herd of cows producing an average of 524 kilograms of milk solids per cow per year, while the carbon footprint of the milk produced is 10% lower than the national average.

The carbon footprint was 0.86 kg CO2 eq/kg FPCM in 2024.

The Walsh family are also taking action to protect water quality. They have reduced their chemical fertiliser use by 40%, using 130 kilograms of N per hectare per year across the farm, while producing 13.7 tonnes of grass dry matter.

They spread all their slurry using low emission slurry spreading techniques (LESS), have fenced off all water courses, use GPS for precision application and created buffer strips beside water bodies.

John and Brendan Walsh are the overall winners of the 2024 Teagasc/FBD Environmental Sustainability Awards. They milk 165 cows on a platform of 63 hectares and a total grassland area of 107 hectares, and supply Dairygold co-op.

Information from the ‘Dairying at Dusk’ evening walk, which was organised by Teagasc, FBD and Dairygold, are available at https://www.teagasc.ie/environment/climate-change--air-quality/signpost-programme/events/dairying-at-dusk-/