TIM Casey can vividly remember sitting in UCC’s library in December 2017 when he was supposed to be studying for his Christmas exams in Applied Plant Biology, but instead he was consumed by grass.

“I was reading research and articles from all over the world, looking at different ways of measuring grass, from eyeballing and plate meters to cut-and-weigh methods.

I was also looking at emerging technology in Australia and New Zealand, including satellite imagery and remote pasture measurement,” said Tim.

A self-professed dreamer, the 30-year-old Innishannon man turned his dream into reality and launched Cork Grasslands Services in 2018 and has since helped change grass measuring from being a compliance exercise to something used to manage grazing, feeding and surplus grass.

Last year, he partnered with Dublin-based Proveye to roll out its remote-sensing pasture management platform across his network of dairy and beef farmers, and he’s currently working ‘day and night’ on a remote grass-measuring app to have it ready for the next grazing season.

And just in case he wasn’t busy enough, he’s just rented a farm with his father and is establishing a beef enterprise.

Pardon the pun, but he doesn’t let the grass grow. “When I started lots of farmers were not routinely recording grass measurements, never mind looking at satellite technology.

We had to walk before we could run, get farmers measuring grass, whether that meant buying a plate meter, using a quadrant and shears, or simply getting into the habit of walking their farms regularly.

If they were not going to do it themselves, I wanted to provide a service where we would go out and make sure the job was done.

I knew that regular grass measuring could make a difference, but I also knew that the long-term opportunity was in finding a way to remove the labour-intensive weekly grass walk and make the service more accessible to a much larger number of farmers,” he said.

From 2019 onwards, he was working on remote grass-measuring technology.

“Nearly two years ago, I first came into contact with Proveye.

Their vision for remote grass measuring really aligned with how I had always seen it working.

We both understood that the problem was not simply replacing a plate meter with a satellite.

It was about making grass measuring easier, increasing the frequency of measurements and getting farmers to actually use the information to make management decisions,” he said.

They started sending out their first commercial remote grass measurements in spring 2026.

“It has been a great experience, but we have faced plenty of challenges, as you would with any new technology product.

One of the biggest challenges early on was the GPS collars.

Every farm being measured remotely needed one cow in the herd wearing a collar.

We had a few teething problems in the spring, with batteries dying, collars falling off and other issues that had to be sorted, which they were,” he said.

July and August’s drought was also an issue.

“Grass growth was well below normal on many farms, and I was a small bit worried about how the technology might perform in those conditions.

Thankfully, it stood up to the drought very well, which has given us more confidence in the system.

We also collected a huge amount of valuable drought data that will help us improve the models into the future.

Following the difficult grass-growing conditions this summer, I think farmers are increasingly aware of the importance of building resilience into their farms.

We cannot make it rain or control the weather, but there are things we can do to help farms cope better with difficult conditions and recover more quickly when the rain eventually comes,” he said.

The biggest development at the moment is his new remote grass-measuring app – “the fruit of nearly nine years spent physically out on farms, seeing what works and, probably more importantly, what does not work for farmers.”

“We are working on it night and day to have it ready for the next grazing season.

We are also developing a wider range of service options for farmers.

At one end, we will have farmers who simply want to meet their grass-measuring requirements and complete the basic 20 measurements.

Then we will have farmers who want weekly measurements throughout the year, and others who want twice-weekly measurements along with a full grassland advisory service.

The aim is to have something for everyone, regardless of how interested they currently are in grass measuring.

I really believe that if you are milking cows, there should be something in this app that is useful to you, regardless of your knowledge of grassland management or whether you currently believe in grass measuring,” he said.

Tim’s ambition and passion knows no bounds and he’s currently involved in some exciting research and trials on farms in the UK.

“There is definitely potential there, and we have plans to dip our toes into the UK market over the next 12 to 18 months.

But we will walk before we run. Our priority is to get the Irish service right first, take the lessons we have learned from this year and then look at how we can apply them further afield,’ he said.

His own background is in fact in pig farming.

"I grew up around pig farms and working with my dad, Willie, but we never owned land ourselves.

What I am really excited about for 2027 is that, for the first time, we will actually be farming in our own right.

Myself and my father have recently rented a farm in Bandon, and we are preparing to establish a beef enterprise there.

We have only recently taken on the farm, and we hope to purchase cattle over the next five or six weeks.

I am really looking forward to getting it up and running and, in particular, working alongside my dad.

I am so used to giving out to farmers for doing things wrong or not following the plans I have made for them, so now I will have to practice what I preach!”

Winning the Southern Star September Farming award, he said, was a “huge honour.”

“I am a born and bred Innishannon man, and West Cork has always been at the centre of my life growing up.

It is where my business is based, and even though we are now scaling nationally across Ireland, West Cork accounts for a large percentage of the farms we work with.

No matter how far the business grows, West Cork will always be home.

“The Southern Star in particular has always had a big place in our household growing up.

To be recognised by the paper now and win this award is a huge honour, and to be recognised alongside some brilliant previous award winners is something I am very proud of.”

Artificial intelligence and automation is going to influence how farms will look in 10 years’ time.

“One of the biggest challenges I see is that we already have so much data in farming, but a lot of it goes unrealised. Farmers are busy people, and they do not always have the time or the skill set to sit down and analyse everything available to them.

That includes grass measurements, soil-sampling results, milk recording, herd fertility reports and all the other information being collected on farms.

The question is how we take that information and turn it into something that helps a farmer make a better decision today.

I would love Cork Grassland Services to be a key driving force in agricultural technology in Ireland and help farmers use technology to improve performance in a way that is profitable and environmentally sustainable.

Ultimately, I would love to get to the stage where our technology becomes as vital to farmers on a daily basis as the milking parlour is "