Photographs from the Teagasc organic farm walk on the farm of John Hamilton, Newtowncunningham, Co Donegal

John farms in St Johnston with the out farm in Newtowncunnigham, Co. Donegal. This farm began its conversion to organic farming in 2009 and has full organic status since 2011.

The land is all owned by John with no land leased. The farm consists of three main enterprises which are a suckler herd, a midseason lambing flock of ewes and also a tillage enterprise.

The tillage enterprise is largely used for growing feed for the cattle and sheep on the farm but there is also a small amount of feed sold off farm to local organic farmers.

The suckler enterprise consists of 20 suckler cows with predominantly Hereford x Simmental breeding. The cows have excellent milk ability and produce excellent quality calves. John has recently switched to using a red Angus sire which continues the ease of finishing animals which the Hereford has provided in the past. All cattle produced are finished on farm and are sold through an organic processor.

The sheep enterprise consists of a flock of 50 ewes with a scanning rate of approximately 1.8 annually.

The tillage enterprise for 2024 consists of a combination crop (pea, barley and oat mix), arable silage, forage rape and a pea/bean mix as part of a nationwide trial.

The farm is split into two blocks the home farm consisting of 14.82 hectares of predominantly grassland and the out farm consisting of 32.34 hectares.

The out farm includes grassland, tillage and red clover silage. Overall the holding is made up of the grassland for grazing of 20.65 hectares, 0.4 hectares of pea/bean mix, 5.62 hectares of combi crop, 14.29 hectares of red clover silage, 1.85 hectares of multispecies sward, 1.90 hectares of forage rape and 2.45 hectares of wild bird cover.

The grazing area will be carrying 20 cows and 20 calves, 15 finishing cattle/replacements as well as 50 ewes with 85 lambs which gives a whole farm grass stocking rate of 1.24 Lu/ha excluding the tillage area.