Needless to say, the weather continues to be the main focus of the farming sector.
First tonight, Matt spoke with Martin Ryan, Livestock Nutrition Manager with Glanbia to discuss and explore feed options in the current climate conditions. He made the point that even if rain started to fall it would take at least another month depending on rainfall before growth started so all options need to be discussed. He also had some advice as to how to plan for the exceptional conditions.
Continuing our focus on Farm Safety Week, Clare McCormack, correspondent of the farm news site Argiland, spoke with Matt on the current state of safety and discussed some of the stark statistics. Clare is strongly of the opinion that there needs to be a change of emphasis in the treatment of safety issues and discussed some options under consideration at EU level such as the linking of farm safety practices to CAP payments.
James Murphy, Kilkenny chair of the IFA joined us to provide a local focus to the current weather situation. On the issue of farm safety, while he differed essentially from Clare McCormack as to strategy James agreed that still more needs to be done and that there were some easily achievable approaches to be considered.
Pat Moylan, adviser with Teagasc spoke with Matt about upcoming events focusing on the management of both dry stock and dairy cows in the current drought conditions. He stressed the need for farmers to seek professional advice and told us about upcoming events where experts will be on hand. He also spoke about an upcoming safety event.
We had the weekly Farm Diary sponsored by Tullow Mart and George Candler joined us from Kilkenny Mart to give the Kilkenny Mart Report.
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