Dairy Summer Tour 2021

Focus on the management and potential of clover (This is an overview of the event that took place in July)

While the country is gradually beginning to open up as the vaccination programme rolls out, unfortunately COVID-19 restrictions will again prevent us from being physically on-farm for our 2021 Irish Grassland Association Dairy Summer Tour supported by AIB.

But the show must go on, so we welcome farmers across the country to join the Irish Grassland team and sponsors AIB for a live online farm walk via our website www.irishgrassland.ie to explore the role of clover.

Throughout the hour and a half event at 11am on July 21st, we will take you from the start of the journey on the road to clover incorporation on your farm to what the future will hold for you following this journey. Being online allows us to bring you to see two farms that are nearly 300km apart.

Commenting at the launch of this year’s Summer Tour, Donal Whelton, Head of Agriculture, AIB said: “Despite being the most sustainable producer of milk globally, Irish dairy farmers, wrongly, have all too often been portrayed in a very negative light within broader climate change discourse. While generally accepted that change is inevitable and required in certain instances, there is no other group in society as committed to truly being a fundamental part of the climate change solution as are Irish farmers. And it is Irish farmers who hold the innate carbon sequestration potential to offset the externalities of production. AIB is delighted to once again partner with the Irish Grassland Association to provide, through experience and knowledge gleaned from these two progressive and forward thinking ‘host’ farmers, practical insights and strategies that can boost further not only the environmental sustainability of the Irish dairy sector, but also its economic sustainability’.

Throughout the event on July 21st, we will take you from the start of the journey on the road to clover incorporation on your farm to what the future will hold for you following this journey. Being online allows us to bring you to see two farms that are nearly 300km apart.

Kevin Moran
Kevin Moran farms near Caherlistrane, Co. Galway, and in the last few years has really focussed on reducing his nitrogen fertiliser inputs and incorporating clover on his farm. He is some of the way along his journey, and we will discuss with him how he is finding the transition, what challenges he has encountered along the way and what he is doing to overcome those challenges.

John Joe and Andrew O’Sullivan
Then we will attempt to take you ‘back to the future’ by visiting the farm of John Joe and Andrew O’Sullivan near Rosscarbery, Co. Cork. John Joe began using clover as part of his farming system in the mid to late nineties and still does so to this day. We will discuss what clover has done for John Joe in that time and what it continues to do for him and son Andrew, who is now working the farm with John Joe. How clover has been incorporated and more importantly maintained on their farm will be the focus with the O’Sullivans.

As there is much weight on the shoulders of clover to carry the livestock industry as a whole, but specifically help the dairy industry to reduce its reliance on chemical nitrogen, this online event will be of great interest to all. We look forward to welcoming you to Cork and Galway live at 11am on July 21st