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00:00Hello and welcome to Ear to the Ground. Coming up for you on the show, Dara is in Neath meeting
00:06a dairy farmer who's doing something very different with his milk. When I was younger,
00:10milk was the original energy drink. It's what everyone went to. So I thought, bring milk to
00:15the convenience fridge. Stephen finds out how the tillage sector is doing. Prices are on the floor.
00:20Stores are full of grain and nobody really wants it with cheap imports coming in. And I'll be in
00:26Galway meeting a farmer who's growing all sorts of vegetables. They have all the qualities of a
00:31normal cucumber, but way better. That is delicious.
00:46Imagine a dairy farm that operates from eight in the morning till five in the evening,
00:58with robots doing most of the work, freeing up the farmer to focus on adding value to his milk.
01:04Well, that's exactly what's happening on this farm here in County Mead.
01:0915 years ago, Pat Farrelly had just sold his company in Dublin.
01:14Having left the family farm as a young man, he decided to come home and take it over from his
01:19father and uncles. I was coming back to farm and I thought farming could be an easy life.
01:25It could be a semi-retirement. Had you made so much money up in Dublin that you
01:30were just figured that I'm going to swan around the farm now for the next 20 or 40 years?
01:34No, the farm had to be economically viable and that's what I wanted to do. So it was myself and my
01:38brother. Both of us were exiting different scenarios in Dublin and we looked at various models as to
01:43what was possible. We talked to Chagas. Realistically, to be financially viable,
01:47Dearing was the only option. The company that Pat had owned was in the technology sector
01:53and it left him with clear ideas about how the firm should operate.
01:57I didn't want to come back to a 24-7 scenario and that's why technology I knew could help that.
02:03There used to be, I suppose, a philosophy when I was growing up on a farm that any problem could be
02:09solved by just working harder and that wasn't a model I was trying to bring back. I was comfortable
02:14that we could apply a lot of technology to farming and bring a more business aspect to farming.
02:20With that strategy in mind, the first thing Pat did was to introduce a robotic milking system.
02:26How often do these robots milk the cows? Because these are going 24-7, right?
02:34Yeah, they can milk depending on the cows. So a cow that's very milky can be milked three times a day
02:39or more. A cow that's less milky is milked only maybe 1.6. How much does one of these gizmos cost?
02:45They're about 160 to 200,000 euros. Really? Yeah. Per robot? Per robot.
02:51This gives you all the information as the cow is coming in so you can see the yield she's giving.
02:56The expected yield she should be giving in this visit, the meal she's allocated and where she is
03:01in that meal. So you saw all this in your phone? All this is on our phone. So if we wanted to look
03:07at the health or the behaviour of this cow, you can see her movement, our fats and proteins,
03:13her eating, her activity, everything is recorded here on this. Which all added up gives you a picture
03:19of how that cow is doing. Yes. Pat continued to expand the use of technology on farm,
03:25introducing automatic calf feeders and collars on the animals with sensors to constantly monitor
03:31their activity and health and identify cows and heat. And I suppose the last bit of technology
03:37we bring in is our drones we use for calving, strangely enough, in the autumn herd.
03:42Why do you need a drone? How? I can't figure that out. The autumn herd calves outside,
03:50so it's not like the spring herd where we calve indoors. So the cows are calving outside and
03:54essentially calving in very tall grass. But finding a calf can be tricky. You could go out in the morning
04:00and you could see two cows have calved but you've only got one calf. You could spend hours going
04:05through trying to find where that calf is. So now the easy way of doing is just put up a drone and
04:09you'll find the calf within minutes. Wow. With all this high-tech efficiency in place,
04:14it meant Pat could find the time and space to consider diversification.
04:19We decided to bring the milk further, closer to market, the value-add as people would call it. So
04:25we came up with herbal, which is milk in a can. It's high-protein milk recovery drink, essentially,
04:31in a can. The canned milk is produced off the farm. But before I went to visit the processing plant,
04:39I had a chance to see how things used to be done here with two of the men who started this dairy farm,
04:45Pat's dad, Tom, and his uncle, Michael. How long ago did you build this parlour? It's 1973 we built it.
04:52We started farming in 1973. January 75 we started milk cows in here. Right. Michael, how does it feel
05:00to be standing back here? Does it bring back memories? Well, I suppose there's a bit of nostalgia.
05:06I suppose that when we were milked in, we were spending four and a half hours in the morning and
05:11three in the evening, which was seven and a half hours per day. And then you had a day's work to do.
05:16Then you had a day's work to do. Yeah. And when you had this parlour built, this was the robots of his day.
05:24This was the state of the art at the time. Yeah. People came to see this new concept because you have
05:30to remember before that it was Milchhorn. Yeah. We were the first to do bulk collection.
05:35The big thing here now is that everyone has gone out of here at five o'clock in the evening.
05:42Nobody here at eight o'clock in the morning. It works. And it's dead easy to do it.
05:49Twice a week, the milk from Pat's farm is transported to this production plant in Trim,
05:5325 minutes from the farm. This product has been two years in development,
05:59but the concept had been knocking around in Pat's head for quite a while.
06:04Take me back to the moment where you first had the idea for this.
06:08I have a lot of kids, young kids who are coming back from exercise and various activities.
06:13And every time they'd be coming home, they'd be drinking the high caffeine, high sugar drinks.
06:18And I remember that when I was younger, milk was the original energy drink. It's what
06:22everyone went to. So I thought, bring milk to the convenience fridge.
06:26Operations director Pierce Fleming adds flavourings like chocolate, coffee or vanilla to the milk,
06:33as well as vitamin D. What else is going in there?
06:36So it's all natural ingredients. So it's our whole milk obviously makes up the majority of it.
06:39And then we're adding in our milk protein powder and our natural flavours and a bit of cane sugar also.
06:45With everything mixed, the flavoured protein milk is pushed through the canning process.
06:51The drink is pasteurised in the can, giving it a long shelf life.
06:58Making this product is very much a family affair. Pat's sister Áine works in finance and is also a director of the company.
07:07Where do you need to get to?
07:08We need to get to the export market is the truth. So we start to start with, it's probably the UK,
07:16Europe. There's a really good market in Europe for flavoured milk. The States is always the dream.
07:22And Asia, I think there could be a huge market for this product in Asia.
07:26Surely there's somebody already doing milk in a can in the US, in Germany and in Asia.
07:33Yeah, actually our research has thrown up one other company doing the same thing as us.
07:38Quite a similar product and that's a company in the States. Other than that,
07:41we haven't come across any other company doing it.
07:45Working alongside his sister and with his son Conal now helping out part-time,
07:49Pat's hope is that this novel product will help keep the farm and the family well into the future.
07:56This project has taken a lot of time, more than I would have expected in the beginning.
08:00And I suppose the flexibility of the way I farm has allowed me to devote more attention to it.
08:06But it was important to develop something I believed to help the longevity of the farm
08:13for it to be financially sustainable.
08:15Coming up after the break, the tillage sector in crisis.
08:25I really do think that we could end up leaving land fallow, not growing anything in it for the coming season.
08:31Make your first loss be your only loss.
08:32And I'll be in Galway with a farmer growing 350 different varieties of fruit, veg and flowers.
08:40My favourite way is to roast at the oven, put a little cinnamon on top, a little olive oil.
08:52It feels like it should have been a great year for tillage farmers.
08:55The weather has been terrific and yields have been pretty good.
08:59But speak to growers up and down the country and they'll tell you that margins have never been as tight.
09:04With some even questioning whether growing a standard crop like oats is worth it at all.
09:10Irish farmers have grown oats here for centuries.
09:13But now, merchants are struggling to sell them in Ireland because of cheaper imports.
09:19And they're actually looking to export Irish oats.
09:23In North Dublin, tillage farmer Martin Ennis grows oats, oilseed grape, barley and wheat on 1000 acres.
09:30What kind of a year have you had so far?
09:34So far, the year's been pretty good from a weather point of view and crop point of view.
09:39We've had good crops for the first time in probably three years.
09:43So what are you doing here today on the farm?
09:46We're sowing a crop of oats in here today, 20 acres.
09:49We had planned on putting in 120 acres, but we think we're going to cut back to just 20.
09:55It won't pay us back, so we're going to see what else we can try and do.
09:58The yield for a good harvest of oats on this land is about four tonnes per acre.
10:05Do you know the price per tonne of oats that you're going to get this year?
10:08Yeah, we spoke to the merchants. We have a fair idea, yeah.
10:13We're looking at somewhere between 150 and 160 a tonne.
10:16And how much does it cost to grow it?
10:17It's probably costing around 145 per tonne in or around that.
10:22There's not much left there, is there?
10:24No, so if you're not getting your four tonne, you're in trouble.
10:29Are you going to make money in any of the other cereals?
10:32Being honest, we probably will on the oilseed rape.
10:35On the other crops, it's a break even, hopefully, territory.
10:40And that's going with high yields of this year.
10:43Winter oats were a key part of Martin's five-year crop rotation.
10:48Rather than making a loss on them, he's now facing the dilemma of what to do with the farmland intended for oats.
10:54I really do think that we could end up leaving land fallow, not growing anything in it for the coming season.
11:02Make your first loss be your only loss.
11:04It's not good for the ground leaving it fallow, but if we're not going to be making a living out of it, why bother?
11:10Martin Farms was his cousin Paul and Paul's son Sam, the next generation of cereal growers.
11:16If things don't pick up, I don't know if there'll be a future for me.
11:21What else will you do?
11:23I'd have to go and look for a job, like, there's not, there wouldn't be enough, enough for the three of us, you know?
11:29But you're the future, you're the tillage farmer who's going to be growing crops, you know, the next 10, 20, 30 years.
11:35Yeah, but no point coming in working for nothing and getting nothing out of it.
11:39I couldn't see myself doing nothing else, but sure, who's to know?
11:43While cereal prices have dropped 5-10% on last year, costs such as fertiliser, chemical sprays and machinery are all on the rise, as is the price of land.
11:5730% of Martin's farmland is rented, some on a five-year lease and some renewed year to year.
12:04It's just getting harder and harder to take this land every year. The price just seems to be skyrocketing.
12:11So whenever our lease is up, are you competing with other sectors, other farmers again?
12:16We're competing with the dairy farmer. We're also competing with the solar farms.
12:20When it goes into solar, it doesn't come back, so there's no more competing there.
12:23If you had to put, you know, numbers on it for land leases in general in the area, what are they making?
12:29Tillage land is making anywhere from 200 to 300 euro an acre.
12:34It shouldn't be there. It's not viable.
12:36Ireland grows about 2 million tonnes of grain each year.
12:40But we need to import over 5 million tonnes to meet demand for animal feed.
12:4670 to 75% of that comes from outside the EU, from countries where the cost of production is lower.
12:53Ronan Lynch works with Deeside Agri in County Louth, a merchant buying grain from local farmers.
12:58It's a very unlevel playing field. The cost of production of that grain in terms of that grain was produced and where it came from versus the standards that we achieve here in the European country are completely different.
13:12There's a lot of grain imported into Ireland from European countries, and that's not really an issue,
13:17because that has the same standards in terms of pesticides, regulations around fertiliser and so forth.
13:24Irish growing grain has a low carbon footprint and contributes to biodiversity, providing habitat for ground nesting birds.
13:32Which is why the state's Climate Action Plan sets a target of 400,000 hectares under tillage by 2030.
13:40We are currently at 335,000 hectares, well short off the target.
13:45Even if we were to increase our tillage area, we're still not going to come close to what we actually need.
13:51No, we won't, and we still have a situation where a company like Deeside has to go and export oats because we can't get them into the feed market.
13:59We're producing...
13:59You're exporting oats as we speak today?
14:01Trying to, actively looking for customers, yes. There's not a natural buy-in from the mills to use it.
14:08Irish tillage farmers have to compete on price with the rest of the world.
14:13To help offset their higher production costs, the government has allocated an additional one-off payment
14:19of 30 million euro to the sector next year. But there has been no sign of a policy change,
14:26either in Ireland or Europe, to address the imbalance in the long term.
14:30It's difficult to see how we can get a premium for Irish grain when it's competing with imported grain.
14:38But I think we have to try and develop a system where mills have a requirement for Irish grain,
14:44and that even though that grain is available from South America or America, that they still need to use
14:50X amount of Irish native grain based on the fact that it's a lower carbon product.
14:55Because at the end of the day, the European Union and the world is trying to decarbonise the production
15:00of grain and every other product.
15:03Charging a premium for Irish growing grain in the face of growing imports
15:07and on an open global market is a significant challenge. But it would also impact those
15:14farming livestock and possibly the consumer. Martin, the reality is we import a lot of grain
15:20because Ireland needs a lot of grain for its livestock sector and we're just not producing enough
15:25and probably won't. So how do we square that circle?
15:27I think, Stephen, going forward, we need to be paid a premium for growing what we're growing.
15:35We're putting in all the inputs that they want. We're doing everything we're being asked to do.
15:40I think we now need to get a little premium on that to get us over the line.
15:44And do you think will the livestock sectors, which are doing well at the moment,
15:49pay that little bit extra for Irish grain or will they have to be forced to pay that little bit extra?
15:54They probably will have to be forced to touch, Stephen, but I think it makes sense if you look at it.
16:02Buying Irish grain to feed an Irish cow. It makes pure sense.
16:11When you go into a supermarket, there's a fairly limited variety of fruit and vegetables on sale
16:17compared to the astonishing diversity that is actually out there. Well, here in Loch Ray in Galway,
16:22a farmer is trying to change that. He's planting 350 different varieties for sale.
16:30Charles Carr owns this seven acre farm he calls the Boulogne Arc. But he's doing much more than
16:37growing two of everything. He's producing a huge array of vegetables, fruit and flowers from all over the
16:45world. Most of the growing is done on a one acre plot and in two large polytunnels.
16:53The thing that strikes me being in here, first of all, is just the colour. I mean, these purple things
16:57look phenomenal. Yeah. So this is a long aubergine, especially from Thailand. Now, we often think of
17:04aubergines as tasteless kind of spongy yolks, you know? And not thin. No, these are delicious. They're
17:10sweet. They're smoky. You said they're from Thailand. Where are you getting the seeds from?
17:14Well, I actually get the seeds from Austria, funny enough. So they're actually cold adapted
17:18and they grow better in cold than typical aubergines. It's kind of fun, is it? Looking
17:22around the world and saying, I'd like to look at that. I'll give it a go. Wonderful. The diversity
17:25of aubergines. Again, in Ireland, we know one aubergine in the shop. Well, actually, there's about 180
17:30different kinds of aubergines available. You see, it's just bright white like a normal aubergine. Beautiful.
17:35Look at that. And you can actually eat it raw if you want to. I can try it.
17:40Mmm. She's still sweet. Surprising. It's a real burst of flavour. Charles, these look like dirty
17:47melons. Yeah. Yeah. What are they? They're kind of cucumber that comes all the way from Nepal.
17:52They're cucumber? Yeah. They're actually a different species than the normal cucumbers we eat.
17:57But they have all the qualities of a normal cucumber, but way better.
18:00Oh, my lord. That is delicious. And would you be the only person in Ireland growing these?
18:08As far as I know, I haven't seen them anywhere, so. Is that what your pursuit is,
18:11to always find the vegetables that no one else is doing? No, it's not about competing with everybody
18:14else. It's just, I want to have cool stuff. Car is a common Irish surname, but Charles's origins
18:22came from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I grew up in St. Thomas in the Caribbean. So, I mean,
18:27that was part of the inspiration for this place, because as a child, I just walked down the beach,
18:31and it was covered in fruit trees. And I used to actually sicken my belly eating so many mangoes,
18:35and just, I grew up with that abundance everywhere. And it made me realize that it was here too,
18:40and we had this in Ireland, you know? How did you arrive in Ireland, and how old were you?
18:46So, I came to Ireland originally at 15 to go to boarding school. My grandmother and my grandfather
18:51would have been both born in Ireland. So, it was a return to our family heritage, I suppose.
18:56After boarding school, Charles stayed in Ireland to study science and marine biology.
19:03He tried a number of jobs before, 10 years ago, deciding to start a farm.
19:09Who owned the land here? It belonged to an elderly farmer,
19:13bachelor farmer, who passed away. So, actually, I feel like I've met him, even though I never had.
19:18But it was really nice to take on someone else's legacy then, and I feel like he's here smiling
19:22sometimes, seeing this all, you know? These are special pumpkin from Japan, called the uchi curry.
19:28They're one of the most delicious vegetables there is. And what a color, uchi curry. So,
19:32what is their distinctive characteristic? They're very, very sweet. And if you like a sweet potato,
19:37these are like a sweet potato, but way better. How would you cook it? My favorite way is to roast
19:41at the oven, put a little cinnamon on top, a little olive oil. Mmm. When Charles started the farm,
19:48he decided to use a regenerative approach to improve the soil. So, he doesn't plow the ground
19:53here. He also doesn't use any artificial fertilizers or chemicals. We want to improve our land every
20:02year. Like, we're never going to farm something too intensively to damage our soil. We want to make
20:06sure that crop is going to improve the soil by the end of the year. So, where we're standing right now,
20:10this was all flooded when I moved here. This was literally underwater during the wintertime. This was
20:14all rushes. So, it's really interesting how, when you start to apply the regenerative farming,
20:18and you bring back the worms and the insects, and suddenly the whole landscape starts to change.
20:24The produce grown here is sold to restaurants in Galway. But chefs don't just want the vegetables.
20:31This tunnel is filled with flowers and unusual herbs.
20:34Everything here is edible. Everything in this tunnel is edible. This is a big demand within the
20:40restaurants. It's not just a garnish that makes the plate pretty, but actually a herb or a flower
20:44that will enhance the flavor of the dish overall. This purple plant, what is this? This is called
20:51purple peralia, or shisho, and it comes all the way from Japan. Can I try it? Of course. It's in the mint
20:57family, and it's one of the most complicated flavors to explain. It's smoky, it's fennel, it's basil-y.
21:03Don't do justice. Oh my lord, that is incredible. Smoky, smoky. Yeah, whole different layers of flavors there.
21:10It'll keep going, it'll keep changing too. Charles has regular customers who come to the farm to buy
21:15his produce, but most of his income comes from chefs who are keen to get the flavors from his farm onto
21:21their menus. Today, he's delivering to the Glenlow Abbey Hotel and the head chef of the Pullman restaurant,
21:29Angelo Vagiotis. Hey Angelo, delivery this week. How you doing, my friend? I got a few new surprises
21:36for you this week. I brought you the first pumpkins of the year. That's beautiful. Yeah? That's magnificent.
21:42And we have some new flowers this week. We have apple begonias, but two different kinds. I have the big
21:46pink ones, and I have the small orange ones. And I brought you some of the fresh calendulas. I love calendulas.
21:52And szechuan pepper. No way. Szechuan pepper. With service about to begin soon, starters are being
22:03prepped. Tell me what they're making. Well, they are making the opening bite of the tasty menu of the
22:10Pullman, which is the bouquet. It's an edible reflection of a child's garden, of edible flowers and leaves.
22:18Having people like Charles bringing stuff just down the road, 40 minutes drive from Logre,
22:27it doesn't even go to the cooler. The guys prepping it, and the guests are having the same night. And
22:32that's the ultimate luxury. Charles' produce is grown in Galway, but comes from all over the world,
22:39offering people something very different from this corner of Ireland. Charles, what a work of art.
22:46Wow. Angelo, what have you done? I would say there are no other farmers in Ireland who have
22:51ever had a top chef make an edible reflection of their farm. No. You've honoured me, brother.
23:01That's incredible. And you obviously get, then, the pleasure of people really appreciating what
23:06you've done. Absolutely. Well, this is what makes every Wednesday when I come on delivery,
23:09this is the best part when I get to see the chefs. Do you get this every Wednesday?
23:12No. I wish I did.
23:18That's it for this week's programme. Coming up for you next. Stephen will be with a Carlo
23:23Baker taking a special interest in the wheat harvest. It's been a bit nervous. I know I said I wasn't
23:29nervous, but I suppose I was holding it in earlier. Dara meets a Wicklow alpaca farmer.
23:34There you go. Oh, well done. Good girl. Oh. And I'll be in Cork with a dairy farmer who owns
23:41no land of her own. We're getting phone calls from people being like, I've heard about you,
23:44you're the girl in Whitechurch. Me and my husband, me and my boyfriend, we really want to do what you're
23:49doing. Don't forget that this programme will be repeated on Sunday at lunchtime after the farming
23:54weather. You can follow us and contact us on social media and you can hear more farming stories on
24:00countrywide this Saturday morning on RTE Radio 1.
24:30Yeah.
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