Timoleague farmer Seán wins top Carbery milk award

BY MARTIN CLAFFEY

EMBRACING challenges the future brings must run in the family of Timoleague farmer Seán Deasy.

In 1922, his grandfather Daniel who had emigrated to the US, was home on holidays and went to an auction to buy a plough for his brother.

He came home with a farm.

Now, 101 years later, Seán is successfully farming that same land, and on Wednesday he was announced as the overall winner 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.

Seán is farming just outside Timoleague, about a mile from the sea, on land that his grandfather Daniel bought all those years ago, making Seán the third generation to farm it. 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.

Sean 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.

Seán has been an active participant in many farmer discussion groups over the years, and credits much of his knowledge to his early exposure to the contacts and ideas within these groups.

He has been a member of the Carbery /Teagasc Joint programme in the past, the local Grass10 group, his local discussion group and the Carbery Greener Dairy Farmers. He completed the Diploma in Environmental Sustainability with UCC, a joint initiative between Carbery and the university which allows farmers to use retroactive learning to apply what they have learned through the Greener Dairy Farmers programme towards a diploma. He is currently a member of the Barryroe Co-op board.

‘People have old-fashioned perceptions about farmers which I think need to be challenged,’ said Seán. ‘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?’

Carbery chief executive Jason Hawkins paid tribute to the finalists and said the groups’s farmer shareholders are ‘committed, progressive, and environmentally minded’.

‘With each year of these awards, we are creating ambassadors for the sector and for what we do. Promoting and protecting Irish family farming will always be the key objective of Carbery. In Seán Deasy, our overall winner, and in all of our finalists, we are showcasing our quality credentials and our reputation for sustainable farming through our farmer shareholders.’

The judges for this year’s competition, Paddy Barrett, Carbery Quality Director, Aoife Healy, Farm Sustainability Manager, and John McNamara, Teagasc Cork West.

Owned by farming families, Carbery Group processed 598 million litres of milk in 2022, to produce award-winning cheeses and food ingredients in Ballineen, and flavours internationally, which were sold in over 50 international markets across the world.

There were three excellent finalists from each West Cork Co-op (Bandon, Barryroe, Lisavaird and Drinagh) for the Milk Quality and Sustainability.

Bandon Co-op:

The Murphy family, Garraha, Kinsale
The Murphy family, Hollyhill, Kinsale
The Falvey family, Curranure, Innishannon – Bandon Co-op winner

Barryroe Co-op:

Tim Crowley and farm manager Darren Keohane, Ballyhander, Ballinspittle
The Deasy family, Ahafore, Timoleague – Barryroe Co-op winner and overall winner
The Burke family, Ballycatten, Timoleague

Drinagh Co-op:

The Lynch family, Coolnaclehy, Skibbereen – Drinagh Co-op winner
The Deane family, Bunalun, Sklibbereen
Ann Kingston and farm manager Pat O’Regan, Ferlihanes, Rossmore

Lisavaird Co-op:

The Walsh family, Keel North, Enniskeane – Lisavaird Co-op winner
Donal and Tim McCarthy and farm manager Jim Duggan, Casheliskey, Clonakilty
The Hurley family, Cahir, Lyre.