The world is changing rapidly

Stand in the Gap

Kathleen Duffy

We were fortunate to have a nice Christmas and New Year with healthy family and friends and no sickness. Even though we are in the New Year, there nearly wasn’t time to look at the weather with all that is happening on the political scene here and in the world. I had the television turned on quite a lot during the day recently which is unusual, but “Mother of God” why do we put up with the shenanigans and wheeling and dealing that is going on. We have a new Minister for Agriculture in Martin Heydon, although he has been junior minister during the last government. He will be dealing with the new CAP and with generation renewal. Then we will have Junior Minister Michael Healy Rae who takes over forestry, but I doubt if we will see much of him in Cavan. We won’t be overrun with Cavan or women Ministers either.

Then maybe we should count our blessings when you look at America, and listen to the very real threats to so many people and countries. Honesty and compassion are gone, mad messages are being believed, and big finance are starting to rule the roost. At times like this we turn to nature.

It is nice to go out and see a stretch in the days, the first of the snowdrops and daffodils are trying to peep through the ground and then it happened: Storm Éowyn came with a vengeance. The destruction, damage and power outages are still going on as I write. We are without electricity like all our neighbours and it is a disaster. Huge trees have fallen, causing wires and poles to fall all over the place.

On the farm we have a generator, thank God, which keeps the water pump flowing and the robots milking, but it doesn’t extend to the house. Speaking to farmers after Mass on Sunday many dread shortage of water, which is so important for the animals and the worry of not having any for a few days. There are slurry tanks full of water travelling on the N3 to help the situation.

Farming

As the days stretch, we are quickly getting to the beginning of February, and spring herds are just going into the start of calving, but this storm is a disaster, especially if the problems continue for the number of days the ESB Networks' PowerCheck website is suggesting.

I was hoping for a much better year; weather wise and health wise.

Routine cow vaccines are nearly completed and the dosing is finishing as well.

It is a job to record all with batch numbers, expiry dates and withdrawal dates. We are having our Bord Bia inspection very soon so the vet monthly statement is being checked against the HerdAPP for the Drug Cabinet.

Hopefully mart and factory prices will stay up or even continue to rise in all enterprises.

We have been saying that farmers are needed to feed the world as well as doing their bit for the community in times of weather hardship of snow and storm.

There are many changes to be made on new nitrate regulations. The changes are going to affect many and will bring new farmers into derogation. The new Agriculture Commissioner, Christophe Hansen, didn’t give a great commitment on Countrywide on Saturday morning saying that Irish farms need to have more slurry storage, but he seems to be a man that understands farming and farm families.

Anyone over 100kg N/ha is required to use Low Emission Slurry Spreading, based on the stocking rate at December 31, 2024.

We need proper Nutrient Management Plans that can be used correctly as you cannot buy P if you are over 130kgs N/ha without soil sampling. Other changes to age old practices are on the way.

We are planting trees for the ACRES scheme and we are hoping to do soil sampling before end of January to establish the P & K index of the land as there is a need to reduce slurry and fertiliser use.

Teagasc say the optimum is index 3 for both but has stated few farms meet this level.

The Irish soil is very precious as soil erosion is a major problem in the rest of the world.

It is 10 years since the Show Centre was officially opened by the Taoiseach of the time, Enda Kenny. So many people have come through every week. We are delighted that it has been such a success and grateful to all the staff who worked there over the 10 years.

We are so lucky to have great volunteers on committees and also the committed volunteers who are willing to work in the centre when the need arises at the drop of a hat.

The electric power came back in the Centre on Saturday night and we will do everything in our power to help local people, students, our users and the public in any way we can during this outage.