Padraig O’Farrell - Dairy Farm Partnership

Padraig completed Agricultural level 8 degree and returned home to farm. He is an only son who was “always out farming from a young age”. The farm partnership was set up in 2015 on family farm.

Main motivations:

• Coming home after completing and Agricultural degree in college, he had to start earning an income somewhere.

Success factors:

• 2 people are involved in the running of the farm – large knowledge
• Advisory – good advisory network that he could trust and understand
• Family support – “Open minded father who was already in charge of farm”
• Farm was already in place – infrastructure, land

Key hurdles:

• “Changing the farm to be in more line with environmental sustainable practices”
• Business planning – “should have asked more questions”

Recommendations:

• New entrant loan scheme
  “Make them more available to new entrant farmers, regulate them”

Find out more about the New Entrant Network - NEWBIE here