Kathleen Duffy
Co. Cavan woman Kathleen Duffy is logging out this week, as she retires after 24 years working with Irish Farm Computers on Herdmaster, AgriNet Grass and more recently HerdAPP, on software support.
Mother of outgoing Macra na Feirme president Thomas Duffy, she has assisted in the running of the renowned Virginia Show for the past 25 years, and was involved in the setting up and running of the €1 million show centre which opened in 2014.
She lives outside Virginia, and farms with her husband Ned, as well as Thomas.
Kathleen, who has a B.Sc. Honours degree in rural development and a postgraduate higher diploma in adult and community education, remembers the beginning of farm software, back in the late 1990s.
During the recent Teagasc/ICBF breeding week three key reproductive targets were identified as being critically important in seasonal calving dairy herds.
April 24, 2021, 4:00 pm
Milk recording is an important management tool used on dairy farms to identify the best performing cows, high SCC (Somatic Cell Count) cows and many others.
In December 2020, the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation’s (ICBF) milk recording statistics showed that less than 40% of dairy farmers in Ireland milk record their herds, accounting for just 7,000 dairy farms.
The low levels of participation are worrying, with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) aiming to have 90% of the national herd milk-recording by 2030.
Many of the milk recording service providers note that Covid-19 restrictions meant that recording was halted for a period of time, and many farmers that had planned to begin recording in 2020, subsequently chose not to.
April 24, 2021, 2:00 pm
One of the most topical items in the news at the moment is the climate action bill, with many debates held over the impact that proposed plans will have on the future of Irish farming.
With the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) being one element of the bill – Andrew Crombie from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has suggested that
a reduction in the national age of slaughter may be the solution to avoid culling cows from the national suckler or dairy herd.
Speaking on this month’s ‘Lets talk cattle’ webinar hosted by Teagasc, Andrew spoke about research carried out in the ICBF test centre in Tully, Co. Kildare, on methane production from finishing cattle, illustrating a benefit to GHG emissions output.
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