With the year that was 2023 now drawing to a close, Agriland caught up with ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison team leader, Amie Coonan, to take a look back at just some of the highlights from this year.
The processor-led sustainability initiative organised a range of events throughout the year for both farmers and industry personnel, and participated in a number of other farmer and non-farmer events also.
In early January, the Advantage Beef Programme team hosted a calf-rearing event in Newcastle West, Co. Limerick.
Coonan said: “The Limerick calf-rearing event was the final event of a series that ran throughout the ABP catchment area. It was a well-attended event, with speakers covering calf rearing, the importance of genetics, and an overall beef market outlook from BordBia. The leading Artificial Insemination (AI) companies were present at the event to offer advice for the farmers present.”
The BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition also got underway early in the year, and ABP sponsored the ABP Farm Safety award at the 2023 event.
John Buckley, from Hamilton High School in Co. Cork won the prize. His project was titled: ‘Investigation of a prototype tool belt to prevent musculoskeletal injuries in vets’.
Soil sampling
Also in January of this year, ABP Food Group launched its new soil-sampling service for farmers.
The service is available to all its farmer suppliers, both Advantage Beef Programme members and non-advantage members.
Soil core samplers remain available for farmer-suppliers to borrow at each of ABP’s seven sites across Ireland.
Farmers can collect soil samples from their fields and return the soil sampler and the labelled samples to their nearest ABP site.
Breeding initiatives
In early April, the Advantage Beef Programme teamed-up with Aurivo in a mutual effort to improve calf quality.
Over 100 calves were moved through the pilot scheme between dairy and beef farmers, and following on from the success of the pilot scheme, over 2,000 AI straws were supplied to Dairy farmers by ABP, free of charge.
A total of 2,200 AI straws were supplied to dairy farmers across the country, in an effort to create a pool a high-genetic merit beef calves for ABP’s advantage beef farmers.
The initiative supplied high-quality Angus, Hereford and Limousin sires and aimed to offer assistance to dairy farmers on how to select beef sires. This initiative will provide an outlet for these calves in spring 2024.
Demo farm open day
In July of this year, the ABP Demo Farm hosted its open day which was organised with the help of the Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison team.
The event saw large numbers of farmers flock Carlow for the open day to view the farm, hear from the guest speakers and find out who won the ABP Beef Benchmark awards.
At the event, University College Dublin’s (UCD) Tommy Boland explained the role of Multi Species Sward (MSS) in calf to beef farmers while, MSD discussed various animal health issues and prevention plans.
ABP’s Stephen Connolly explained the importance of genetics in calf to beef systems while David Lawrence from Bretts explained key components of winter diets, and offered advice to farmers on finishing cattle.
Tully visit
In November this year, ABP hosted a farm walk at the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) Tully Research centre where ABP suppliers had the opportunity to see the research facility and hear about the latest findings.
ICBF’s Niall Kilrane and Ciaran McDonnell spoke about the effect of the Commercial Beef Value (CBV) on profitability, Heather Peppard from Brett’s spoke about winter-finisher diets, and Liam Carroll of Blackwater Vets covered all things animal health.
Info events
In December of this year, almost 300 farmers attended the ABP Dairy Beef Breeding event held in Corrin Mart, Fermoy, Co. Cork.
Farmers had the opportunity to learn about the new CBV index and see it on displayed on mart boards, observe the effect genetics has on animal performance, and see how to select sires for various cow types.
A panel discussion featuring both dairy and beef farmers, discussed how farmers are now using genetics on their farms to enhance their calf quality and overall profitability.
Also in December, ABP run a number of factory tours at its sites. Some of these took place in November and the remaining site visits will take place in January.
Farmers were given the opportunity to see the full-production process from the lairage right through to the packing area.
After the factory visit, Teagasc representatives were there to offer farmers AgNav training in the afternoon, to highlight the importance of each farmer doing their bit to increase on farm sustainability.
BiOrbic
Another development in December was the announcement of ABP’s new partnership with UCD and BioOrbic for a regenerative farm project. The regenerative farm research partnership will run over a period of two years.
The project aims to provide “objective, scientifically robust data to reduce the environmental impact of pasture-based beef production systems”, according to a statement from ABP Food Group.
Coonan added: “These are just some of the many, many events and developments our team were involved in, and we look forward to 2024 being just as busy of a year with more new exciting developments and initiatives for farmers to engage with.”