Members' Blog

We caught up with Team Leader, Angharad Davies to hear all about their experience in Cork! This trip was kindly supported by the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust.

On the 8th of August, myself and 7 other Wales YFC members from every corner of Wales made our way to Birmingham Airport. Some members met here for the first time, and it was wonderful to see members that had previously travelled with Wales YFC and members travelling for the first time start to share their expectations about the trip. We made our way towards gate 3 for the flight that departed to Cork. Once we were aboard the flight the journey was a short 50 minutes across the Irish Sea to land in Cork. Our first mission once we made it to Cork was to retrieve the hire cars that had been booked for us to make our way around the county. This took a while but eventually we left the airport in two cars and made our way to the hotel situated in Cork city centre.

As there were no farm visits planned for the Thursday afternoon, we made our way around Cork city to take in some of the sights before making our way to an Italian restaurant for supper. I’m sure everyone would agree with me that the food was out of this world. Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped at an Irish bar.

Friday morning soon arrived, we made our way from our hotel to find the cars and started our journey north towards North Cork creameries. What an interesting visit we had. The tour started with a presentation about the history of North Cork creameries covering everything from the start to the present day. We learned that Cork creameries was established in 1928 and is a farmer owned cooperative producing the equivalent of nearly 3,000,000 litres of milk a year. The Creamery produced many more products than we expected, as in most Creameries we expected to see milk and butter being produced but little did we know that North Cork Creamery was a little different. They were also a milk drying facility producing wide range of milk powders and whey powders. When we visited the drying plant, we soon realised that the heat needed to produce milk powder was unbearable. In another production plant we saw the company produce Casein. This was an impressive production plant mostly being operated by technology and the finished product was bagged by an automated robot. Before leaving the beautiful town of Kanturk we found ourselves in a small Irish pub for food. As we made our way to the next farm, we visited the ruins of Kanturk Castle.

The next stop was a visit to Glen South farm, the farm made history in 2014 when they became the first Beef finishing farm in Europe to install a robotic Lelly feeder. This move was to maximise efficiency on time with the hope that the fresh feed intake would ensure good growth rates and consistent daily live weight gain for the cattle. When we visited Glen South farm, we were amazed by the cleanliness and forward thinking this farm had. In this state-of-the-art shed they had capacity to hold 1500 store animals, as we visited during the summer months most of the cattle we’re out being fed on grass. In the shed we saw cattle that were close to the finishing weight and freshly bought young stock that were being prepared to be turned out to grass for the end of the summer. While we were there the Lely Vector feeder began to prepare the next ration for the cattle. It was like nothing we’d seen before with a robotic arm picking up silage from the ‘kitchen’ before carrying it over to the robot where pre weighed concentrate food was added for the robot to mix before making his way around the shed to deliver the food. After a long day of visits, we made our way back to Cork where we dined at Dwyer’s a must visit pub in Cork with live Irish music playing all night long.

Saturday morning, we were on our way west of Cork to visit Tony Murphy a 3rd generation organic farmer. We got to see his herd of suckler cows, flock of sheep and crops that he was growing. He explained what systems he used under the organic scheme and the benefits he saw from being organic. As the weather was wonderful during the afternoon we decided to head South towards the beach, before we got to the beach, we visited Blacks Brewery and Distillery of Kinsal. Established in 2013 situated on the estuary. Once we got to Kinsale and made it to the beach an ice cream was a must as we enjoyed the afternoon sun. As Saturday night was our last night we decided to dine out in a steakhouse, and we’re served a treat with mouth-watering food.

Sunday morning soon came, and it was time to head back towards Cork airport, with a short flight back to Birmingham the trip had flown by, and it was time for everyone to make their way back to all four corners of Wales.

We’d like to thank all the farms and businesses that we visited in Cork and thank Wales YFC for the opportunity to travel, make new friends and create endless memories along the way.