Fitzgerald Family Farm Virtual Farm Walk - Energy & Biodiversity

On Thursday October 1st the Fitzgerald family from Portlaw in County Waterford opened the gates of their farm for a virtual farm walk. The theme for the day was reducing the carbon footprint of milk production systems. Here we focus on the Energy Efficiency and Biodiversity themes from the day.

The Fitzgerald farm is part of the Teagasc/Glanbia Open Source Future Farm Programme. The programme aims to harness advancements in technology and farm practices to support farmers to make the necessary changes for a profitable and sustainable future. A key objective of the programme is to help farmers implement changes to ensure that their environmental footprint is in line with the aims of the national Climate Action Plan.

As part of the Teagasc/Glanbia Future Farm Programme, the Fitzgeralds are looking at energy usage of the farm and have recently installed solar panels on the farm. Find out what else the Fitzgeralds are looking at doing to conserve energy on their farm

The Fitzgerald family farm has a baseline assessment score of 18% for biodiversity on the farm which is considered high. The Fitzgeralds have a lot of features on the farm which contribute to this such as hedgerows, water courses, whooper swans and a proportion of their land plays host to low input pastures and wildflower seeds which encourages bees and pollinators. Hear their plans for increasing biodiversity even further on their farm #SustainableDairyIreland