Livestock farmers have been urged to roll their silage ground “as soon as conditions allow” by contractor representative organisation the Association of Farm & Forestry Contractors in Ireland (FCI).

In a statement today, Wednesday, April 1, FCI national chairman Richard White said:

“We are also urging all livestock and dairy farmer customers to roll their silage ground as soon as conditions allow so that when the silage harvest is in full swing there are less stoppages due to unnecessary machine breakages.

We are concerned that machine parts availability may be a problem, depending on the length of the Covid-19 outbreak, so we all need to work together to minimise machine risk in these challenging times

“Farm and forestry contractors will play their important part in ensuring that crops are planted and fertiliser and slurry is spread in a timely way, as well as crops harvested, during the current coronavirus outbreak,” White said.

New protocol

Earlier today, the FCI and the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) put forward a new protocol for farms where contractors are working to minimise risk of Covid-19.

IFA president Tim Cullinan said it is very important that the strictest adherence to the Health Service Executive (HSE) guidelines on Covid-19 are in place for both farmers and contractors.

In the protocol put forward, the FCI urges its members to give their teams a clear set of instructions and if possible stick an “essential worker” notice in a prominent place in the tractor cab.