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Ear To The Ground S33 Ep07
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00:00Hello and welcome to Ear to the Ground and the final show of this year and with Christmas
00:06almost upon us Ella is in Kilkenny playing elf to a farmer turned toy maker. How big an object can
00:14you scan? I could scan you if I wanted to scan you I suppose yeah. With the recent outbreak of
00:20Bluetongue in Northern Ireland Stephen looks at the implications for Irish farming. I think we need
00:25to be really wary of the idea that potentially this virus has crossed the border. And I'll be taking
00:31a chilly dip off the coast of Wardford before relaxing in a brand new off-farm venture.
00:55In just a week's time thousands of people across the country will be jumping into the sea for their
01:08annual Christmas swim before heading for one of the many mobile saunas that have opened up on almost
01:14every shoreline. But our story begins back in October in a milking parlour in Ardmore in County Waterford.
01:23It's a regular Sunday morning on the Keane family farm. Tony Keane and his son Jack are busy milking
01:32their 180 cow herd. So far so normal on your average Irish dairy farm. But next door there's something
01:41you wouldn't expect to find a mobile sauna and hot tub. It's all to do with the business that Jack set
01:49up last July. So how long will it take to fill this? So it takes about half an hour to fill the hot tub.
01:58Then we'll get the fire lighting and it takes about two hours then to heat up the hot tub to have it ready
02:03for the first session. So the first session's at 12. So once we have a lighting by 10 we'll be ready to go.
02:10Jack graduated in Ag Science from University College Cork in 2023 before starting a job at the
02:18Chagas Advisory Office in Middleton. I learned a lot there but the office side of things
02:25wasn't really for me. I'd like being out in the open, outdoors and stuff. So I went back farming
02:30this year until April and then I decided to try something else out. Living so close to the sea
02:37and with an interest in health and fitness, Jack settled pretty quickly on the idea of starting his
02:42sauna and hot tub venture. I kind of wanted my own little project that I could work on. I wanted
02:48something that I'm my own boss in some regard. So I decided to go down this route. I play GA and
02:56sports like that so I was kind of interested in recovery and there's loads of health benefits around
03:02it like just even for stress, mental health and all the rest of it. I used to be going to asanas
03:08maybe every weekend, every second weekend myself. The fact that we're so close to the sea here as well
03:14I thought that that was just a good idea to go down that route. It's lovely down there. So I was kind
03:19of looking into different zonas and all the rest of it and I saw that the mobile option was probably
03:24the easiest because if it didn't work out for me I could always set it on or move it. That it wasn't
03:29fixed. I wasn't kind of stuck with it. Jack purchased his hot tub and sauna from Lithuania at a cost of
03:36around 20,000 euros. Until it landed in the yard his father Tony didn't really know what to think.
03:44I actually thought he was joking the first time. Even the second time to be honest I thought he was
03:49joking. And maybe you still think it's a bit of a joke do you? Well it wouldn't be for me. It wouldn't
03:54be what I'd think. I wouldn't google it first thing in the morning when I'd get up. And he had this idea
04:00and I said fine if you want to go for it go for it. Jack has two sisters and a younger brother but
04:06he's the one most interested in farming and the plan is that he will eventually take over here.
04:12But Tony is still far from retiring and it's not easy stepping back from something you've worked hard
04:18at building up. It's hard to know. More than likely he will. More than likely he will but that's his
04:24decision. I won't stop him. Yeah. But he's got to make it for himself. I'm only after arriving where
04:30I am very lately and you're going to hand it all to the next generation straight away. I don't know.
04:38I don't know. If he shows enough interest then he's willing to take over yeah I'd say it is as well to
04:42step out of the way. Because it's difficult to have two bosses in the same yard isn't it? And we wouldn't
04:48be the greatest two bosses to work together to be honest with you. Yeah. No. It's not that easy to hand
04:54something straight to a fella. Just even besides a good education he might not have enough suffering
04:59done yet. Yeah. He has to earn it. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be doing my own suffering a little later on but
05:08first we have to get to today's location. Jack mostly sets up at popular spots along the Waterford coast.
05:19Today we've only travelled a couple of miles down the road to the end of their farm
05:23at Ballyquin beach. The Ballyquin mermaids have just been in for their daily dip and are ready
05:30for their Sunday treat. The sauna, is that part of the routine at this stage? It's fabulous.
05:36Brings a whole other cohort of people here. Young people and the young ones love it. The younger
05:42people are really embracing the whole positivity you know and Jack is a young man himself. All that age
05:47group are coming. It's fantastic for them. It really isn't that they're jumping into the sea below.
05:51OK. Well, I've been told I have to first endure the ocean before I'm allowed the comfort of the sauna
05:58but you're heading that way and I'm heading this way, yeah? Oh yeah. And you have to embrace it,
06:02not endure it. OK. Well, I'll do my best to embrace but it'll be a small short embrace, OK?
06:08As the mermaids head into the steamy warmth of the sauna, I've stupidly agreed to brave the bitterly
06:17cold Celtic sea. OK, this is gorgeous and all that but it's actually feeling freezing so it's going to be
06:24short and sharp. The sauna better be good. Oh my god. Yes. There's a reason most people don't feel this on a Sunday morning.
06:54I surprised myself and lasted all of two minutes.
07:00But not without a sense of achievement. OK, so Daniel Craig I may not be but I survived. Take me to the heat.
07:13The party's going on in here, is it? I was more than ready for my full finished sauna experience. Now, that's pretty sexy.
07:21Felt hat in place to protect my head from the heat, I was soon in my element.
07:30With the growth in popularity of saunas like this, Jack feels he's in the right place at the right time.
07:38When you were studying your ag science degree, you never imagined to be perched on a rock here.
07:43No, I didn't. It's a small bit different from what I had taught maybe a few years back when I was studying agricultural science, yeah.
07:51Everything's after settling down a small bit and things seem to be going very, very well so far.
07:56Yeah. So hopefully it stays going that way for me.
07:58Is there a danger that this tempts you away from the farm in a bigger way?
08:02Um, I'd say maybe, maybe. But I'd say there will always be plenty of jobs at home for me to do.
08:09I don't think I'll ever be short of a job to do down there for some strange reason.
08:13At least now you have options.
08:15Yeah, I do. I do.
08:23That's it for part one coming up after the break.
08:27Blue tongue disease is in Ireland, but are we ready to combat it?
08:31If you don't stop it early, then you run the risk of it becoming something that we may have to live with long term.
08:36And making 3D toys in Kilkenny.
08:46For the very first time, the diseased blue tongue is now on the island of Ireland.
08:52Discovered in cattle here in Northern Ireland, the implications of this are already being felt north and south of the border.
08:58I'm here at the Royal Ulster Winter Fair in County Antrim, where this area behind me should be filled with the very best breeds of cattle.
09:06But due to the outbreak, no animals are allowed into the fair this year.
09:11For the past three weeks, temporary control zones restricting animal movement have been in place in Northern Ireland around farms where blue tongue has been detected.
09:22Even though it lies outside these zones, the Royal Ulster Winter Fair has cancelled all animal classes this year.
09:28Has this ever happened before?
09:30No, this is the 39th year of the Royal Ulster Winter Fair and we've never had it without livestock before and it is very, very disappointing that we've had to do it this year.
09:39Do you think, would there be a financial implication for some of the competitors?
09:43I would imagine there would be, but unfortunately there's nothing that we could do. We had to take the advice and go with cancelling the classes.
09:50The first positive tests for the disease occurred during routine sampling at an abattoir as part of the surveillance and tracking programme for blue tongue in Northern Ireland.
10:00Since then, it has been discovered in more herds.
10:03David Kyle is Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer with the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland.
10:10It's not really a surprise to us. We've been tracking this disease for quite some time.
10:14It landed in England, in the south-east of England in about October 23 and we've been monitoring its progress across Great Britain.
10:22Blue tongue is spread by midgeese and is so-called because one of the symptoms can be a swelling and discolouration of the tongue.
10:30It can also cause fever, lameness, fetal deformities and stillbirths.
10:36Clinical signs are much more severe in sheep.
10:39Blue tongue poses no public health risk though or threat to food safety.
10:44Were those animals showing symptoms?
10:46Absolutely no symptoms. They would have left the farm perfectly healthy
10:50and in the abattoir the vet would have seen them and there were no comments at all on their health.
10:55With temporary control zones of 20 kilometres around affected farms now in operation,
11:00movement of animals within these zones is severely restricted.
11:04It spreads by midges, not necessarily from animal to animal.
11:08So why are there restrictions on why animals can move?
11:11Well, pregnant animals can certainly carry the virus and the fear would be that a pregnant animal
11:16could go to an area where there is no disease, calve,
11:20and then midges subsequently set off a new wave of infection.
11:24In response to the outbreak, here the Irish Department of Agriculture is now stepping up testing.
11:30According to a spokesperson, that will include on-farm blood sampling of cattle and sheep,
11:36testing livestock submitted to regional veterinary laboratories,
11:39and sampling of cattle routinely slaughtered at meat plants.
11:43Dr Gerald Barry is a virologist at the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine.
11:49Midges don't respect borders, right? So they're going to move where the wind blows them essentially.
11:54They don't tend to move over massive distances, but we couldn't discount it.
11:59And I think we need to be really wary of the idea that potentially this virus has crossed the border.
12:04Climate change is causing warmer and shorter winters,
12:08a factor that could be contributing to these recent outbreaks.
12:13Given that this winter has been quite mild, is there a general increase of more midges about?
12:20The fact that there is milder winters definitely encourages that prolonged season of activity,
12:25even into November. And of course, remember as well, within barns and sheds where the temperature
12:31might be slightly higher, you might have more midge activity potentially even into the deep winter.
12:36In response to an anticipated outbreak on the island, a new vaccine program was announced in the north
12:43this summer. Andrew Moore is the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs responsible
12:50for its introduction. Do we need to have an all-Ireland approach to this in terms of vaccinations?
12:55The island of Ireland is one single epidemiological area. That's why we must cooperate on this.
13:00In terms of vaccinations, I made a decision as Minister to allow farmers to make their own decisions,
13:05whether to make this available for themselves. It's for my counterpart in the south to consider this
13:10as the picture emerges. The Irish Department of Agriculture has said it is now closely examining
13:17the potential role for blue tongue vaccines to help protect Irish livestock when the higher risk
13:22disease transmission period begins in late spring, early summer of next year. It is also engaging with
13:30vaccine companies in preparation for this. The vaccine doesn't stop infection and it doesn't stop
13:37onward transmission of the virus from an infected animal. What the vaccine will do is it'll reduce
13:43clinical signs and it'll reduce a little bit the amount of virus in the animal, but it doesn't get
13:49rid of it and it doesn't block infection. So while the vaccine does help, it's not a kind of a magic bullet
13:55that's going to stop an outbreak. In the north, the decision to vaccinate has been left to individual
14:02farmers. At the Royal Ulster Winter Fair, the ones I spoke to were broadly supportive.
14:08The vaccine currently is costing Ā£2.50 per year or Ā£5 per pound. So it's a considerable cost if you have to do
14:16it every year, but if it prevents animals dying, it's very cheap. I don't think there'll be any
14:20going to go out and vaccinating right at this moment. I think coming closer to maybe January,
14:24February time, we're maybe going to have to look into it. Until there's a lot more positive cases,
14:28I don't think we'll do a lot about it. So will you vaccinate? Probably if it started to show its face
14:35more, we'll be vaccinating, yeah. If Bluetongue was to be detected in the Republic, the sector most impacted
14:43would be live exports, which in 2024 was worth ā¬340 million. Cattle accounted for 75% of that.
14:53Adam Woods is beef editor with the Irish Farmers Journal. We export thousands of calves in the
14:59springtime and thousands of weanlings as well. So that puts huge pressure then on in terms of beef
15:03price possibly in two years time. The initial thinking now is because the disease is so prevalent
15:08across Europe, there won't be as strict measures put in place. Heretofore, it was that we had to be
15:13Bluetongue free to export to those countries, but because Bluetongue is prevalent across Europe, those
15:18health certs, it's thought that could be amended and we can still maybe export some cattle and some
15:23sheep from 2026 onwards. The fact that Bluetongue has finally been detected on the island confirms a
15:30fear we've been living with since it was found in England two years ago. Whether it's here to stay
15:36we'll be down to how we respond. The key really is rapid early response. We need to wrap up
15:44dramatically our surveillance to stamp out any potentially infected animals and then vaccinating
15:51that region as well as an added layer to try and mitigate against onward transmission of the
15:57infection next year. If you don't stop it early, then you run the risk of it becoming something that
16:03we may have to live with long term. It is not long now until children all over the country will be
16:13unwrapping their new toys. But not all of them will have been made in Santa's workshop. I'm in Kilkenny to
16:21meet a young man on his family farm whose future lies in something completely different, something he's
16:29going to do. He's building layer by layer. Adam Brennan lives just outside Castle Comer. He works as a
16:36substitute secondary school teacher but helps out on the farm when he can. Two years ago he also
16:43started his own 3D printing company and like many start-ups it all began in the family home.
16:50So this is where it all started out. Up in the attic? Yeah, the first printer was there and then
16:59by the end of five or six months I had six printers up here and I had no sockets left. Six printers?
17:04Six printers, yeah. Was it very noisy? They weren't. No, they're not too bad. I'm sure dad might say it
17:10different now because this room is in there but it was fairly warm up here. Adam lives with his father
17:16Jackie and grandmother Mary. Mary and her late husband Tom originally owned this farm but things
17:23of course were very different here in the 1950s. What did you do? What kind of farming? We were milking
17:30that time weren't we? We were milking, yeah, milking, yeah. Very different from now? We're very different
17:34from now. We hadn't that many cows. Three-legged stool. I was sitting on the stool milking the cows
17:40when I came here first. You were hand milking the cows. Unbelievable. I've worked that for a few years.
17:46Jackie has developed the farm over the years and now has 70 fleck-fee cattle, a dual-purpose milk and
17:52beef breed. He was just 18 years old when he first took over here. Do you remember the first morning
17:59after you had had the farm handed over to you? I wouldn't really remember. It wouldn't have been any
18:04different than the morning before like you still had to go up to milk the cows. Sure but an amazing feeling
18:09surely. Yeah, yeah well sure look you had more responsibility to take on from there like so
18:14another 10 years I'd be handing over the reins. Only 10 years? It's Adam's brother Liam who is the
18:21most interested in agriculture having studied it in college. He's currently working in Australia.
18:27Adam has an educational degree in graphics engineering and technology. Was it always in your mind
18:34like design, engineering, the idea that you might set something up? I think it was yeah. I suppose I
18:40would have been thinking about different businesses to set up and kind of thinking it through before
18:45actually deciding on one. So I ended up a 3D printer then in the end. Yeah, what do you make of it now?
18:49I couldn't understand what 3D printing was in the temple. Yeah, I didn't know what was going on.
18:53I'd say what the hell is this like doing upstairs. Didn't know what it was in the beginning like so
18:58I was wondering was there something that was going to milk the cows for my brothers? Did it make sense
19:03that Adam started to go into that? I mean was he always into those things? Yeah, well he always had a
19:07good interest in them things like and I knew whatever he was going to do he was going to do it right like.
19:11Good girl, come on, come on, come on. When I was in TY, Dad got me into a farm supply shop in Kilkenny and I
19:18kind of kept on that job then after TY I was working every summer and every Saturday. I was doing a lot of repairs and
19:23the farm repairs and there was always something different coming in that you had to fix. There
19:28was always learning involved. You never knew what was going to come through the door.
19:32You give that one to the heifers, there we go. It was during an open night at school when he was
19:37teaching that Adam first saw a 3D printer in action. It was something that immediately caught his
19:43attention. I kind of did a bit of research. I kind of realised there was no one actually offering
19:473D printing as a service so I went and bought my own one then in January 24. Where did you get the money
19:53for that? How much did they cost? I suppose I was living at home so I had a little bit of
19:57saves in the bank. They range from about 500 to 1000. There's different models coming out then so
20:04they are somewhat affordable. In April of this year Adam moved his operation into the local
20:10enterprise centre in Castle Comer. Having more space has allowed him to add more machines. The two new
20:19printers he's bringing here today will mean he now has 25 machines in total.
20:27These are the printers? Yeah, these are all the printers. So it's not what I had thought.
20:30What did you think? I had thought of a printer. A printer? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a bit different, yeah.
20:36Having taught children with autism and special educational needs, Adam decided to focus his 3D printing
20:43business on making sensory toys. They're made using bio-based plastic imported from Asia which are
20:50derived from plant materials such as cornstarch and sugar cane. So it's building up layer by layer here
20:57one at a time and then the first layer is made on the base of it. So the first layer on this one is
21:03all that part there. Oh it's hot, yeah. And then it's hot when it comes out of the printer but it cools down
21:08fairly quickly. And how long does it take to build that? That one there takes five hours.
21:22Adam's tactile and colourful toys are largely based on animals and dinosaurs but he also makes fidget type
21:29objects. You're a teacher. When you go into a class where you think that the kids would benefit from
21:35these, what happens when you give it to them? It's like clicking the pen there with the kids. They
21:39have energy that they're trying to release so when they have something in their hand like a fidget tie
21:43they're releasing that energy so they're more inclined to be focused then when that energy is
21:47being output somewhere else. Okay so they can concentrate a bit more. They can concentrate a lot more, yeah.
21:52Do you design them yourself? I design some things myself. Most of the toys I pay a commercial license on them
21:59and then I get them tested and then they're available to sell them after that.
22:02Adam is also looking to grow his business in other directions. Everything from making moulds for use
22:10by sculptors to manufacturing industrial parts. So that's the scanner there and it picks up the
22:16dimensions when I put it close to the object. Yeah. So these markers there that are around that
22:20screwdriver there, that's giving the scanner a signal of where it actually is and what I'm scanning.
22:27So you can take an object like this. Yeah. Put it on this table, scan it. Yeah, yeah and replicate it
22:32down into a plastic object. And then just replicate it. That's incredible. Exactly.
22:35And how big an object can you scan? I could scan you if I wanted to scan you, I suppose, yeah.
22:40So the potential is massive. Yeah, there's loads of potential, yeah. Adam sells his sensory toys and fidgets
22:47online and at markets. And they're now stocked in places like Dublin Zoo, Dingle Aquarium and the National
22:54Reptile Zoo here in Kilkenny. Is it financially a good prospect? Are you making a return now?
23:01I suppose any business as well. Like at the start I did have an input with my own funds. But then after
23:08a couple of months then as well it was paying for itself and like I am still in the first two years
23:13so I am reinvesting, reinvesting what I am making. And you've developed three careers.
23:18Yeah, I suppose there's three careers that are on the go now, yeah. So trying to keep it all tied into one
23:22and have a balance between it all is the main focus. It's not a stage yet where I want to,
23:28even though I do have a lot there behind me, but I still have a long way to go I think.
23:35Well that's it for this episode and this year. We'll be back on your screens on the 8th of January.
23:41In the meantime, have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year. Don't forget this program will be
23:48repeated on Sunday at lunchtime after the farming weather. You can contact us on Facebook and follow
23:54us on X and you can hear more farming stories on Countrywide this Saturday morning on RTE Radio 1.
24:24Puerto RTE Radio 1.
24:42Who knows which party will be leased?
24:44What does thisé Zoe say?
24:46Your best padres have been preached and sent it to me, but if you can.
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