A LARGE attendance is expected to join the farm walk on the farm of Seán Deasy and family in Timoleague on Friday, July 26th.
The Deasy family were the overall winners of the 2023 Carbery Milk Quality and Sustainability Awards. A member of Barryroe Co-op, Seán is milking 80 cows and farming 80 acres at Ahafore with his family, wife Fiona and their daughters Gemma, 16 and Mia, 13.
The farm walk takes place on Friday, July 26th, at 11.30am.
Seán is farming just outside Timoleague, about a mile from the sea, on land that his grandfather bought 100 years ago. He’s the third generation to farm it. His grandfather Daniel Deasy, who had emigrated to America and was home on holidays in 1922, went to an auction to buy a plough for his brother and came home with the farm! Seán took over from his late father Donal in 1996. His mother Anna lives on the farm in the original farmhouse and is always available for support and a cup of tea.
Seán achieved 509kg of milk solids per cow in 2022 and he credits the quality he achieves to consistency. He’s been milk recording for more than 30 years and uses the Barryroe Co-op app to spot any problems early. He is an early adopter of new approaches and technology, and this has led to many changes, including reseeding with clover, not spraying weeds too often and reducing his fertiliser application by half in the last 10 years.
When he won the 2023 Milk Quality award, Seán said he strongly believes that farming and Irish farmers have a great story to tell: ‘People have old-fashioned perceptions about farmers which I think need to be challenged. Farmers are always looking forward to what they can do better. We are very qualified, we know a lot about the environment and if we are not going to be custodians of the land, who is?’
The farm walk on Friday July 26th offers a chance to meet the Deasy family at their farm. The Eircode is P72 AD73.
