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00:00Hello and welcome to Ear to the Ground. This week on the show, Dara is in Kerry with a sheep farmer who lost half his flock to thieves.
00:08So when I started gathering, I knew those big problems and then I found the reality of what was after happening.
00:13Stephen will be in Cork with an onion farmer who used his redundancy check to buy a failing business.
00:19The money was in my account so I said I might still go back out and stay out there. I might still stay broke.
00:24And I'll be in Mayo meeting a young farmer who's changed how he farms to give himself and his family a better life.
00:31So this is like having another farmer on the farm. Yeah, a smarter farmer.
00:54There is only one narrow road in and out of the Clayda Valley in East Kerry.
01:01When I visited last month, Storm Bran had just hit. I was making its presence felt.
01:08You have locks on all the gates now? Oh, all the gates are locked. That's the way it turns out to be gone.
01:15Dennis O'Connor's family has farmed these hills for over a hundred years.
01:20He works part-time in security and usually keeps around 330 sheep on about 500 acres.
01:28But early last September, he discovered a large number of his animals appeared to be missing.
01:35So Dennis, your flock would be up here during the summer?
01:39Yes. All the way, as you can see here, that's the very top of here on the right.
01:43But as you go to the left, it continues on for about 3.5km.
01:46And all the ground is like this? Like this is as good as it gets?
01:50Oh, this is as good as it gets.
01:52If you're not from the area or have local knowledge of the area, you get lost in 10 minutes.
01:56I wind up first or second of September, start to bring the sheep off the mountain for shearing.
02:01And into the pins here down. Into the yard.
02:03Into the yard, yeah.
02:04So what was it that you realized, hang on a second, I'm missing sheep here?
02:08Well, that's when I started gathering. I knew those big problems.
02:13So I took them into the pinned inn down here in the yard.
02:16And we counted them two or three times in case we were doing something wrong.
02:20And until then I found the reality of what was after happening.
02:24With the weather worsening, Dennis and I took shelter in the house he grew up in.
02:29Although it's been empty for years, Dennis now spends his nights here.
02:34While his wife and four children remain in the family home near Killarney.
02:39What did you realize you had lost?
02:42When I counted, when I counted three or four times, I was doing 120 sheep.
02:46I was nearly 100% sure that they were stolen.
02:48Because we said for 120 sheep, you can't get them in the corner, forget them in the corner.
02:53It's just not possible.
02:54If there's five or six or even 20, you'd say, yeah, they're probably here and there.
02:59But not 120, no.
03:01After his loss, Dennis moved his remaining sheep nearer to the house to keep a closer eye on them.
03:08But teeth struck again in mid-October.
03:11I was down 29.
03:13Then they were actually down here.
03:15So they were taken from under my nose.
03:18Was that it?
03:19No.
03:20I counted again the 10th of November.
03:23And I was down 10.
03:25In the space of a couple of months, Dennis ended up losing nearly half his flock to theft.
03:32I suppose there'd be a little bit of embarrassment, maybe, that...
03:36There wouldn't.
03:37There's a little bit of pride.
03:38Because they'd be saying, Jesus, like, why can't he watch his own flock?
03:42What shouldn't that bloody big like?
03:44Then he'd know the place like the back of his hand holes happening under his nose.
03:48Outside the door.
03:49Then I used to say, Jesus, like, let me say, if he can watch that, he shouldn't be family at all.
03:55But you're living on your nerves the whole time because being up in the morning is the first thing in the morning?
04:02Yeah.
04:03Sorry.
04:05It's upsetting.
04:19The sheep stolen from Dennis were part of a flock that he'd spent most of a lifetime building.
04:25As well as keeping traditional black-faced mountain sheep, he'd bred more valuable animals like Texels, Cheviots and Shirley.
04:34It was all part of a bigger plan to make this farm more viable for his son, Donagh.
04:40You must hate to see what's happened to your dad when you know how much work he's put into.
04:47Yeah, it's horrible.
04:48You spend your whole life trying to breed him up and get the best breed you can and then someone's taken just like that.
04:54It's crazy to think how someone can just steal someone's whole work of their life, like.
04:59Yeah.
05:02He's broken from it, like, the whole family is.
05:04And the pressure all the time still tightening in the background.
05:08There's no switching off, like.
05:10If I'm at home or if I'm working, I'm checking my notifications constantly, checking the cameras, make sure everything was okay, no one there and stuff.
05:17Because Dennis keeps his sheep for most of the year out on commonage, which is open hill and shared with other farmers, his animals cannot be insured against theft.
05:30Put a value on the sheep that have disappeared from your flock.
05:35That's when I'm talking about £30,000. A lot of money, you know.
05:40Have you any hope of ever getting the value of those sheep restored to you?
05:45I'd say I don't hope. Like, who's going to give you £30,000? Like, just, not going to happen.
05:52Unlike cattle, the movement of sheep in Ireland is not closely regulated.
05:57Ear tags can be easily removed and replaced, and stolen animals sold on.
06:03The only other scenario is that Dennis' sheep were killed and the meat was sold illegally.
06:09But the Garda Press Office told Ear to the Ground that
06:12There is no indication at this time that large numbers of sheep are being stolen to be illegally slaughtered and their meat sold on the black market.
06:21Dennis' case is still under investigation.
06:23Eamon Horgan and Jason Fleming are both farmers and IFA representatives.
06:29Cases like this have been happening, I suppose, throughout the country with many, many years, but not on a huge scale like this.
06:37And you have many small scale cases that don't be reported.
06:41And it's vital that every case is reported and set a database and you could see the places that have been targeted for to manage sheep rustling going forward.
06:51There is big, big numbers involved in this. It takes a lot of work.
06:55You don't come home and put them into a backyard or a back shed. There has to be an outlet for this.
07:00While that outlet is there, these cases are going to continue.
07:04Where are the likes of Dennis' sheep ending up? I mean, we're talking about hundreds of sheep.
07:09I suppose the reality they're going into the black market and they're going through the fruit chain.
07:12Someone has to know something. Look, there has to be proper investigation around this.
07:16Where are these 160 sheep ending up, right? This is a man's livelihood we're talking about here.
07:20I mean, this can be happening on a regular basis. Who's the next farmer down the road or over in Cork or above in Donegal?
07:27Every group has to get together and see, can we set up a roadmap forward here in relation to all this?
07:33Come spring, Dennis and Donna will begin the work of rebuilding this flock to what it once was.
07:40In the meantime, Dennis keeps a lonely vigil over his remaining sheep.
07:47Dennis, you're here in a house that was vacant for years on your own every night.
07:54I'd like to be at home, but I'm not at home because I'm here. How long will that continue?
07:59It's just hard to know. Yeah. Hard to know.
08:03We'll be hoping that there is an Indian site, but at the moment I don't see it.
08:08But we'll be hoping that every day that goes by and you don't have a theft or something happening,
08:15you'll be hoping that it might see light at the end of the tunnel.
08:18But I don't see light at the end of the tunnel.
08:21Well, that's it for part one coming up after the break.
08:33Stephen is in tears in Cork.
08:36But I have to say, it's after hitting me. So it is.
08:38It'll only get worse, don't worry.
08:40And breeding season on a sheep farm in Mayo.
08:43If you want your heart broken as a farmer, you could try growing these onions.
08:55And that's why there are so few commercial growers remaining.
08:58But one of them is here in West Cork and I've come to visit him today to see how he manages it.
09:03Eamon Crowley grows a thousand tons of onions on 60 acres of rented land.
09:09Eamon, good morning. Michael from West Cork.
09:12This morning, he is just beginning to harvest the first of his spring crop.
09:16They look as if they have been topped, so the top's ticking off them.
09:20Yeah, so we topped them up to about the height of your wrist.
09:23We're going to top over that, about 75 mil.
09:25What we do then is we leave them on the ground for a few hours
09:27and then we come along with this machine and dig them.
09:31And we leave them in the ground to dry naturally
09:33and then we come along later and harvest them.
09:35Eamon is one of just eight large scale onion growers here in Ireland.
09:39He sows two crops yearly.
09:42This particular field was planted last March.
09:45Over the next couple of days, he will harvest close to 1.5 million onions from it.
09:51What the harvester misses is collected by his wife, Anne-Marie,
09:56and their three children.
09:58From the field, the onions are brought to a farm,
10:01about 30 minutes' drive away, near Dunmanway.
10:04Eamon rents the outbuildings here to weigh, sort and grade what has been picked.
10:10The onions are going over this inspection line
10:12and any debris are being removed, weeds or stones or anything loose.
10:18Eamon wasn't born into this.
10:22He actually grew up on a dairy farm.
10:26Tell me about your journey into growing onions.
10:29Well, it's unorthodox, but basically in October 2005, I started working for Benning Coop.
10:35My role there was a production supervisor and they were growing, creating, packing and peeling onions.
10:41So I was there for eight years and then in 2012, the Coop decided to close our section.
10:46So then I was after renunci and I basically bought the peeling line with my renunci money.
10:52So just as the company decided it was getting out of onion production,
10:55you decided it was a good time to get into onion production.
10:58Yeah, the money was in my account, so I said I might as well go back out and stay out there.
11:02I might as well stay broke.
11:04For the first six years Eamon relied on imported produce in order to supply mainly local food producers
11:11with peeled, sliced or diced onions.
11:15He was lucky that he was able to employ two of his former Coop colleagues,
11:20Daniloga Raikkonen from Lithuania and Anatol Kizeta from Poland.
11:26They've been with me since day one, since we started.
11:29We've been working together for nearly 20 years now.
11:31You brought them with you?
11:32Yes.
11:33Yeah.
11:34They've stayed with me ever since.
11:35Thankfully, which I am very grateful.
11:38Just a year after starting his business, Eamon moved the processing operation to a business
11:43park in Bandon.
11:44Before any processing can take place, the onions need to undergo a lengthy drying process.
11:50They are dried in 1,000 kilo boxes, with up to 100 of these boxes stacked on five levels
11:57in a controlled environment.
11:59Air is blown into these.
12:01Yeah.
12:02Into here.
12:03And then you can open and close them depending if the box is there or not.
12:05Okay.
12:06And we put foam cushions at the front end to blow the air manually up through it.
12:10We recirculate the warm air from our cold rooms and from our air compressor.
12:15So, to bring the building up to about 27 degrees.
12:18And then we just control the humidity then with our extraction fans.
12:21How long is the process to get them dried down?
12:23Oh, it would take about a month.
12:24A month?
12:25Yeah.
12:26It must be hugely energy intensive.
12:28Oh, yes it is, yeah.
12:29Each of those are eight kilowatt fans and then you have the heating costs on top of it.
12:34But it's the only way to do them, man.
12:36You have no issues with storability after that then for storing for a few months.
12:40The dried onions can be processed as orders come in.
12:45The stove feel the heat.
12:46Yeah.
12:47So you can in the box.
12:48And the rustling.
12:49You can hear the rustling.
12:50Yeah, that means that it's dry.
12:51It's good to go.
12:52Yeah.
12:53See, it's after shrinking all the way now.
12:54It's after removing the moisture from the neck of the onion.
12:55That neck is sealed though so the moisture can't get down and the onions won't go off essentially.
12:59While they're in storage.
13:01It was in 2018 that Eamonn first grew his own onions to reduce his reliance on imports.
13:08He started by renting 20 acres.
13:11How did that first crop go for you?
13:14Between the drought and being incredibly late planted.
13:17Not great.
13:18No.
13:20That was an incredibly difficult year, 2018 was.
13:23That was the year of the big drought wasn't it?
13:24That's right, yeah.
13:25Actually it was the beast from the east initially.
13:26Definitely.
13:27Yeah.
13:28And then there was a drought afterwards.
13:29Exactly, yeah.
13:30It was a hell of a year to start growing onions.
13:31Yeah.
13:32Like this year we planted these on the 19th of March.
13:35That year we planted them and it may have been called a weekend.
13:38So like that's a big gap for a crop to catch up on.
13:41After that difficult start things improved.
13:44Every year since Eamonn has increased his acreage under onions.
13:48But he is still one of only a handful of commercial growers here for what is after all a key food ingredient.
13:56Why aren't there more onions growing in the country?
13:59Well I suppose the big thing is our climate.
14:02Like the rainfall we get.
14:03It is challenging to grow a crop like this.
14:06It's the time and cost involved in drying the onions for long term stories that puts off most farmers.
14:14By offering a prepared ingredient to his customers Eamonn can charge a premium and make it worthwhile.
14:20Eamonn we've come downstairs and we're just about to enter the factory floor.
14:24But I have to say it's after hitting me.
14:26So it is.
14:27It will only get worse, don't worry.
14:29My eyes are actually really beginning to water or so it is.
14:31Is there any way to stop that?
14:33Oh God no.
14:34We're accustomed to it now at this stage.
14:36So everyone working on the production line, working at the onions are probably in tears right now.
14:40I hope so.
14:41There are 13 employees working on the processing line but the most laborious work is done by machine.
14:50They are cut by two different series of knives and then they go into a chamber and get slashed by air.
14:56That's the pulping sound.
14:57And then they come out here hopefully peeled.
15:02Increasing the volume of onions handled here over the years has required some serious investment.
15:08Sounds as if there was a lot of money involved.
15:11Oh yeah, it's very capital intensive.
15:13Do you know, but the day you stand still is the day you close.
15:16If you could put a figure on it, what would you say investment wise it took to get to this stage now?
15:20Oh Lord.
15:21Since day one there is well over a million invested between all the farm machinery and everything.
15:26That's significant.
15:27Yeah, but you have to.
15:28It has to be done.
15:30Eamon has built a thriving business supplying his onions to many of Ireland's best known food producers,
15:36including Ballymaloo, Clannacilty and Furlan.
15:41Not a bad return on a redundancy check.
15:44Are you proud of what you achieved?
15:46Yeah, like there's many mistakes and regret.
15:50But, oh yeah, absolutely.
15:52There's been a few years there has been extremely difficult.
15:55Trading years.
15:56But you just have to learn from your mistakes and every year try and make small steps and make it better.
16:02No, I have no regrets.
16:03No.
16:04Would I do the same again in the morning?
16:06Absolutely, yeah.
16:07Last November, on a glorious morning in the west of Ireland, I visited the farm of David Herity, 12 kilometres south of Westport.
16:26He keeps 350 Romney sheep on 60 hectares.
16:35I landed on a very important day on the farm for David and his son Richie.
16:42It marked the start of the breeding season.
16:49Morning David.
16:50Hello, you're welcome.
16:51How are you doing?
16:52Welcome to Cara Reva.
16:53Thank you very much.
16:54Now tell us what's going on here.
16:55We are after bringing in a bunch of yews here and we're going to separate them up into their tupping groups.
17:01Tupping means mating and by being selective about which yew goes with which ram, David can increase the chances of producing lambs with traits he's looking for.
17:13Some of these will have more lambs born, other ones will have better growth rates and we've matched them then with the rams that we have here on farm.
17:22So one of my main goals is here to try and improve how many lambs we have born and then our survivability because we lamb oats here.
17:30I just think knowledge is power like, the more data the more informed decisions you can make.
17:35It's the only way we're going to improve these sheep like.
17:39A few years ago David invested in an automatic sheep handler.
17:44It collects data on each sheep and can immediately match up males and females.
17:51So we're letting the sheep up.
17:53It automatically catches the sheep.
17:55There's some sensors there.
17:57So it's squeezing her to hold her.
17:59Yeah, gently.
18:00And then what's happening?
18:01On the screen here it's saying that she's going to X-RAM and it automatically swung that gate to go that way.
18:09So it knows automatically.
18:10Yeah.
18:11When her number comes in it's already matched her to a ram.
18:14Yeah.
18:15How much was this?
18:16Are we allowed to say on camera?
18:17Yeah.
18:18Over 30,000 I paid for it.
18:21Is it worth it?
18:22So we're reducing labour on farm by having this machine.
18:25We're increasing efficiency.
18:27I dose all my sheep through this.
18:29It's taking control of the sheep so I'm not wrestling with them.
18:34While the selection process is high tech, the next step needs nothing more than a tub of colourful paint.
18:41We put it on the ram's chest here and that way then when he jumps the sheep out the field.
18:47He leaves the mark?
18:48Leaves this yellow mark on it.
18:49And why as a farmer do you want that to happen?
18:51So we want to know that the ram is working.
18:54It's a way of identifying which sire has sired which lamb.
18:58The other two rams were marked red and blue.
19:05The yellow ram meanwhile couldn't even wait until he got out into the field.
19:10So he's wasted no time?
19:12Yeah, they're active.
19:13Yeah.
19:14That's what I like to see.
19:18All things going well, these yews will have their lambs in April.
19:22David has been running this farm since 2012 when his father Richard passed away suddenly at the age of just 54.
19:36At that time David was in college studying design.
19:41I was away living my best life in Letterkenny.
19:44I was 21 at the time and...
19:46Big shock.
19:47It was a huge shock Ellie, yeah.
19:49It was tough now, yeah.
19:52I was the eldest of three of two younger sisters.
19:57And sure you can only imagine how my mother was.
20:00So I suppose I took it upon myself to try and ease the burden of the farm and stuff like that.
20:05And I threw myself into it.
20:08I suppose I didn't know where I was going at the time.
20:11And this gave me focus.
20:14And now any euro I earn is through agriculture.
20:18And listen, I'm happy.
20:22Initially, David continued to farm just as his father had done, with the lambing done indoors and being on hand day and night to assist the yews.
20:31I never felt stressed like it in that year.
20:34It was so much work.
20:35And I said, I can't be doing this for the next 30 years.
20:39Something has to change.
20:40It was during a trip to New Zealand in 2014 that David first saw Romney sheep, a popular breed over there.
20:50It's renowned for its extreme hardiness.
20:53They were lambing outdoors.
20:56They were using rams with good growth rates.
21:00They were using the technology there to help them farm.
21:03So there's definitely an opportunity here if I want to go at this full time for the rest of my life.
21:09This outdoor-based system and the labour-saving sheep handler offers David a better work-life balance.
21:18And there is another advantage.
21:21Romney sheep produce a high-quality wool.
21:26Three years ago, David helped to set up the Emerald Romney Breeders Group.
21:31All their wool is sold to Eru, a Wicklow-based company owned by Zoe Daly and her husband, Lionel Mackey.
21:39And for you, is it a matter of the breed? Do you need sheep farmers to change to Romneys?
21:45From our point of view for textiles and fashion, there are certain breeds that are better.
21:49But the Romney we're discovering kind of together is such a key sheep for Ireland and how we believe we can scale it up from the production end
21:58and how we can make it viable for farmers.
22:01Is it your sense that there is a growing market for the kind of textiles that you want to make from the wool off David's sheep?
22:08There is. We're selling it to the hand-knit market. Our wool is at the higher price.
22:13But we're seeing there is a demand for this full traceability, valuing of the farmer, and they're paying for that as well.
22:20And it is beginning to grow.
22:23It's been more than 13 years since David and his mother, Bernie, lost his father, Richard.
22:299, 10, 11.
22:31In that time, David has reshaped this farm into a productive and profitable one for him, his wife, Clare, and their three children.
22:42You're such a rare breed yourself. You're a full-time young farmer in the west of Ireland.
22:47And you very much see your future, not only in sheep farming, but also getting money off the wool.
22:52As we're standing, I think it's working out between maybe 12% and 15% of the profit now is coming off the sheep's back, I suppose.
23:00And it's allowed me and given me the confidence to invest in things on the farm to help improve what we're doing.
23:06We're in that position there now that it's working now, thank God. We're making all the bills, anyways.
23:18Well, that's it for this week on the show. Next week on Air to the Ground.
23:23Dara will be finding out about a community-based initiative to bring hot meals to smaller schools.
23:29This is an opportunity to put local produce, good quality food, fresh to our children.
23:34Stephen will be finding out how future changes to regulations might impact some dairy farms more than others.
23:41And I'll be spending the day with a vet using acupuncture to treat some of her patients.
23:45I went to do it and actually realised it does work. And it was a revelation.
23:52Don't forget that this programme will be repeated on Sunday at lunchtime after the farming weather.
23:57You can follow us and contact us on social media.
24:00And you can hear more farming stories on Countrywide this Saturday morning on RTE Radio 1.
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