Wales YFC News

Once again this year a group of Wales Young Farmers Members went on a Study tour during the first weeks of October. 41 members from across Wales made the trip to Northern Ireland this year, it was great to see new faces on the tour as well as a few who had been previously.

The journey began on Thursday the 8th of October as they flew out to Belfast and began their journey westwards to his first farm to visit Richard and his Dad has been running the farm in Portadown for three generations and farming over 800 hectares. On the farm, they are involved in finishing beef and store lambs, growing cereals and growing flowers, as well as being involved in an anaerobic digestion (AD) process for renewable energy. The members got to see the cattle fattening system and a corn store that dried the crop in the shed as well as a new horticultural diversification project which was increasing significantly over the next few months with a new store and packing unit being built. By that evening the crew had arrived in Omagh for their first night where they also met a group of Young Farmers from Ulster.

The second day began with a visit to the Euro Auctions site in Dromore, the original site for the business that was founded by Derek Keys and his brothers. We heard a little about the history of the business and how it has now grown into a global company selling machining through an American approach. The business started in 1998 and now they sell in 8 locations across 4 different continents.

They then travelled towards Antrim during the afternoon to attend the Jalex sale in the evening. 280 heads went under the hammer from cows and calves to bulls, with the majority being in calf heifers. This was an auction on James Alexander’s farm where he farms beef cattle and sheep on 600 acres.

On Saturday morning the crew travelled north and visited two sheep farms, the first being Roger and Hilary Bell’s farm on the outskirts of Antrim. They farmed 1,500 sheep on rotational grazing systems as well as finishing beef cattle throughout the year. Their passion for research and looking at data to improve productivity, efficiency and profits was evident as he was involved in a number of AgriSearch projects, including GrassCheck, Beacon Farm Network and the EIP project on multi-grazing pastures, as well as ARCZero. Their farm is also a CAFRE Technology Demonstration Farm. Both placed emphasis on looking after and improving the quality of the soil in order to get the best productivity out of each individual piece of land.

The second farm they visited on Saturday was the Cafre Hill Farm Centre affiliated with the Collage of Agricultural, Food and Rural Enterprise. The centre, which is partly located within a Special Protection Area covers over 1,000 hectares and supports 100 suckler cows and 1,100 breeding sheep. The initiatives at the Hill Farm Centre demonstrate effective management practices for upland and mountain land for students and farmers, focusing on Livestock integration and environmental management.

Before returning back to Belfast for the night the crew travelled north to visit Bushmills Distillery where Whiskey has been made since 1608. They got to see the process of how the whiskey was created from the barley all the way through to the bottling process. On the last night of the trip they social evning was a must so the crew spent their night in Belfast.

On the last morning of the trip they visited Ballybollan Dairy Farm, fourth generation farmers who have switched to dairy only since the 1980’s. They were farming around 500 acers with a herd of 300 Holstein cows calving in the autumn, with the aim of finishing the beef calves by 16 months and the beef heifers by 23-27 months. The trip ended on Sunday afternoon as they flew back from Belfast to Birmingham.

We must thank the NFU Charitable Trust for their support and, the opportunity to enable the members to be able to visit farms in other countries as it gives them the opportunity to learn and broaden their horizons once they return home.