Tomorrow, Tuesday May 18, sees the official launch of the Teagasc Signpost Programme.
Hosted by RTÉ’s Ear to the Ground presenter Helen Carroll, the online webinar will demonstrate how this new Teagasc-led collaborative programme will support Irish farmers in reducing emissions from agriculture.
The webinar will provide an opportunity to attendees to learn more about the programme along with meeting some of the participating Signpost farmers.
Additionally Teagasc will take a look at the European and marketplace perspective on the importance of climate action by Irish farmers.
Register now for the event which takes place tomorrow (May 18) at 10:00am at www.teagasc.ie/signpostlaunch
What is the Signpost Programme?
The Signpost Programme is a Teagasc led-initiative, involving a partnership of over 30 companies and organisations from the Irish agri-food sector.
Its purpose is to support climate action by Irish farmers and its main goals are to reduce gaseous emissions from Irish agriculture, while creating more profitable and sustainable farming enterprises.
The Signpost advisory campaign is the second element to the programme. It will engage with all farmers and support them to move towards more sustainable farming systems.
100 Signpost farmers will be central to the programme and will demonstrate climate smart farming systems for all farmers.
Tomorrow (May 18), two of these farmers – beef farmer Ger McSweeney and dairy farmer Steven Fitzgerald – will join the webinar to discuss what steps they will be taking to reduce emissions. Find out more about them below:
Ger Mc Sweeney – Signpost farmer – beef
Ger farms with his wife Karen and daughter Ella in Tooreenbawn, Millstreet, Co. Cork.
He farms a total of 25.3ha (adjusted), which is divided into four blocks. Tooreenbane is 918ft above sea level and the average rainfall is 1685mm annually which brings with it specific challenges .
He runs a suckling to beef system consisting of 35 spring-calving suckler cows. The males are finished as under-16-month bull beef, while the heifers, not retained for breeding, are finished at 23-24 months.
Some of the areas that Ger is concentrating on to reduce emissions include:
- Improving breeding and fertility (currently 0.95 calves per cow per year);
- Calving all heifers at two years of age, which means getting an average daily weight gain of over 1.2 kg/day, while at grass (currently he is calving 90% of the heifers at 2-years-old);
- Reducing the age at slaughter for all stock (bulls 15.5 months and heifers 20 months);
- Improving grassland management and average daily gain (heifers 1.2 kg/hd/day and bulls 1.4 kg/hd/day);
- Improving silage quality to >72% DMD;
- Reducing the overall carbon footprint of the farm.
Ger uses 100% artificial insemination (AI) as it allows him to use the best genetics available and to pick a specific bull to match each cow.
He can pick top quality replacement bulls to breed heifers while also picking top terminal genetics for the rest of the cows.
The infrastructure on the farm is excellent, with 37 paddocks in place, roadways and plenty of water troughs.
He is measuring grass on PastureBase Ireland and using this programme to improve his grassland management each year. Soil fertility is also improving with pH, P and K all increasing in the last four years.
Ger has replaced urea and all of his CAN with protected urea. He has a detailed health plan on the farm with a very robust vaccination programme, which has reduced his antibiotic usage while also improving animal performance.
Steven Fitzgerald – Signpost Open Source Future Farmer – dairy
Steven, who is married with a young family, is farming with his parents near Aglish in west Waterford. They are farming 130ha, of which 56ha is leased.
They milked 160 cows in 2020 with 60 replacement units. All beef calves are brought to beef for sale.
Parlour and accommodation has been upgraded in the last five years. The highest point of the farm is 600ft above sea level.
Soil fertility is low on the leased land and fine on the owned land. Grass measuring, reseeding and improving soil fertility are very important to this farm to reduce its carbon footprint.
The Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) for the farm is 26% and he aims to improve this to 35% over the next five years.
How will he do this?
- Steven will use 100% protected urea, where no compound fertiliser is required;
- He has tested his slurry – the test gives him the confidence to reduce his artificial nitrogen (N) input. Steven will also make better use of slurry by using trailing shoe;
- Steven will reduce artificial N application during the summer to encourage clover;
- He is also sowing some multi-species swards to reduce N requirement.
Overall he hopes to reduce his N use by 20% and reduce his carbon footprint to 0.80 kg/CO2 per kg FPCM (fat & protein corrected milk). This figure for 2019 is 1.06 kg/CO2 per kg FPCM.
The EBI of the herd is €182 and the young stock have an EBI of €230. The calving interval is 367 days with a 90% six-week calving rate.
In 2020, the cows supplied 520kg milk solids (ms) per head. In 2020, Steven genomically tested his dairy stock to make better breeding decisions and to quicken his genetic gain.
His target is to supply 550kg ms/cow in the next few years.
Signpost Launch
Register today and join the Teagasc Signpost Programme launch tomorrow morning by clicking here.
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