Gareth McCormack

Location: Skeagh Bailieborough, Co. Cavan

Farm Size: 34 Ha

System: Suckler to weanling

Details:

Gareth is part time farming and also works shift work in local co-op. The land is heavy clay soil laid out in one block. Infrastructure is quiet good on farm with good roadways and paddocks but some fences in need of repair. Grassland in need of some improvements, as farm was leased for 10 years prior to 2013 some soil fertility needs to be corrected as well as a lot of reseeding taking place.

There is a low stocking rate of 1.3LU/Ha currently on farm. There are 33 excellent Saler type cows presently on farm with the plan to increase cow numbers to 50 and bring all progeny to beef, males as U-16 month bulls and heifers at 20 months of grass.

Mandatory Challenges

• Two tonne grass challenge - All farms to aim to increase by 2 Tonne/DM/ha
• Farm finance challenge - Gross margin target €1250/ha on average
• Farm safety challenge - Farms to introduce 2 positive changes annually

Optional Challenges

• Breeding challenge - Increase average replacement value of herd by €20 over course of programme and meet all herd fertility targets
• Soil fertility challenge -Aim for 70% of farm at index 3 P&K. Ph - aim for 6.1 (5.7 on peat soils)
• Labour/structures challenge - Labour use focus/ Drystock farm partnership focus

Read more on the challenges 

Updates

IFJ articles

• IFJ - 06 May 2017 (PDF)