FREE EVENT

On the evening in-between the Dairy Summer Tour and Dairy Conference, there is an opportunity for farmers meet at a free event in the Talbot Hotel Clonmel at 8pm The guest speakers for 2022 are Seamus Quigley Dairy Farmer, Ashleigh Fennell Dairy Farmer and Joe Patton Teagasc. They will be interviewed by former Irish Farmers’ Journal Editor and IGA Lifetime Merit Award recipient, Matt Dempsey.

Ashleigh Fennell Diary Farmer. 

Ashleigh farms in Palatine, Co Carlow milking 96 cows

in a spring calving herd. Ashleigh entered milk production in 2019 converting from beef and sheep. In 2021 the herd produced 549kg milk solids per cow (4.43% fat and 3.62%

protein) from 1.2 tonnes of meal. The farm is very light and struggles with grass growth during a dry summer.

Dr Joe Patton 

Joe is head of the Teagasc Dairy Knowledge Transfer Department. He graduated from UCD with a Degree in Agri Science. His research PhD was on ‘Influence of nutrition and energy balance on the reproductive function in dairy cattle’. In 2009, he took up a role as dairy specialist for winter milk production in Teagasc with responsibility for the Tegasc winter milk systems project. In 2020, he moved to the position of ruminant

nutrition specialist.

Seamus Quigley Dairy Farmer

Seamus Quigley Starting in 1990 with 30 cows on an owned block of land at Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, Seamus and Monica Quigley moved to farm at Loughrea, Co. Galway in 1999. Now operated as a partnership, they milk 450 cows on the farm with over 460 kg milk solids sold per cow in 2021.