Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 24 November 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Dairy Industry: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 pm

Mr. Sean Farrell:

On moving from tillage, one particular customer who I think is representative of the tillage sector comes to mind. The customer is now in a collaborative farming arrangement with an existing dairy farmer and is putting what was a former tillage block to use in grassland production. He is learning from the existing dairy farmer in terms of how he can grow his dairy business. The skill set is quite different but that is the way that particular individual approached it. We were also comfortable with supporting the farmer, who was technically an excellent tillage farmer, as many of them tend to be but he needed to learn the skills from an existing proponent in dairying.