YouTube star Phil: ‘We do everything except hedge cutting!’

Co. Longford farmer, Philip Stewart, is better known online as ‘Farmer Phil’ and uploads videos to YouTube every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

His videos feature everything from contracting and cattle, to machinery demos and vintage tractors.

Philip is a member of Macra na Feirme and the IFA.

He farms approximately 249 acres of tillage and 300 acres of grassland (50/50 owned/rented) with his dad Derek and uncle Ian.

The family, who are based in Ballinamore, run a large contracting business with a wide range of machinery.

“We do everything except hedge cutting!” Philip stated.

His brother Eric, sister Jessica and fiancé Olivia Hartshorn also help out.

Mum, Diane, carries out “all the book work, accounts and all the behind the scenes work”.

During the busiest part of the year, the family employs some extra workers to help with silage and harvest.

Philip studied in Gurteen Ag College and qualified with a Green Cert in 2016.

As well as YouTube, he can be found sharing his daily life in agriculture on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Up until 2004, the family were milking a pedigree Jersey herd, but that was, sadly, wiped out by TB.

They also had a pedigree Limousin herd until 2016, when they switched from sucklers to a dairy beef finishing system.

They purchase approximately 400 dairy x beef calves, from 10 days old upwards, from local dairy farms each spring.

The calves are fed milk replacer, using automatic calf feeders and weaned onto a calf ration.

Philip is a very big advocate for Jersey cross calves, and finds that calves born in January and February time are generally healthier and give the best performance.

The Stewart family used to buy bagged feed, which is more expensive than bulk feed.

Aside from biosecurity risks, they also had significant feed losses from vermin.

So, they purchased a 16t green split V-Mac feed silo which could store two different calf rations and which also protected the valuable calf feed from hungry vermin.

According to Teagasc, rodents, if not controlled, can cause serious economic losses on farms through consumption, contamination and spoilage of food and feed, spread of pathogens which are damaging to human and animal health, damage to buildings and equipment and loss of quality assurance accreditation e.g. Bord Bia.

Cattle are bedded through the winter, either on homegrown straw, milled peat or on slats in the former dairy sheds.

Finished cattle are sold at a target liveweight of 500kgs minimum.

Bulls are finished before 24 months, bullocks at around 25 months and heifers at 26 months.

The cattle are all fed on a grass-based system with a 100 per cent homegrown finisher ration, except for biscuit meal, a food waste product supplemented by a mineral vitamin mixture.

The family grows 240 acres of cereals plus field beans (which replaces imported soya beans for protein) and forage maize (under cover) to feed their own stock.

They also sell surplus oats and winter barley to an agri merchant, local equine and livestock farmers.

Philip said: “We also sell some baled silage, square bales of hay and straw to local farmers.

“Square bales are popular - because of their higher density and shape they take up less storage space (scarce on many farms!) than round bales.”

The family operate a wide range of machinery for their farm contracting business.

This includes a fleet of Massey Ferguson tractors, big square baler and combine harvester.

They also have a Claas Jaguar silage harvester, a Fusion baler wrapper, JCB loader and many other machines.

The Stewart family also have a large collection of vintage tractors and machinery from Fergusons to Nuffields, including the first ever tractor the family owned, bought by his great grandfather - a petrol Ferguson 20.

Also included in their collection are four vintage Massey Ferguson combine harvesters.

One of their dogs, Bertie, an Irish x Lakeland terrier, enjoys travelling around the farm in a tractor cab and can often be seen in Philip’s YouTube videos.

Philip and his fiancé Olivia have also opened a farm shop this year, Stewart Family Farm, selling their own home produced beef, which is slaughtered and processed by a local butcher in an approved abattoir.

Alongside this, they also sell a range of produce from Co. Longford, including honey and elderflower cordial, as well as ‘Farmer Phil’ merchandise!

Philip added: “Our Friesian and Jersey x beef is selling well.

“We have great feedback from customers and people are coming back for more.

“The shop is going great, we have a great range of customers from locals to sending boxes of beef to the four corners of Ireland”.

A more recent farm enterprise, in conjunction with the farm shop, was a crop of homegrown pumpkins.

Open for the week before Halloween, visitors were able to ‘pick your own pumpkin’.

Another great example of farm diversification and an enterprising young farmer!