Farming in the foothills of the caves of Keash in Co. Sligo is Clive Bright, a suckler farmer who on first impression, could easily be mistaken for farmer with an overgrown farm.
However, on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the farm’s grazing platform is a carefully managed asset of Clives’ ingenious suckler enterprise that is delivering exactly what he requires of it.
The word ‘sustainable’ can be thrown around a lot in agriculture, but Clive’s suckler farm ticks all the boxes as far as sustainability is concerned and in particular, where financial sustainability is concerned.
The reality is that most suckler herds in Ireland are financially unviable without direct support and this was the case for Clive when he started out farming conventionally.
He quickly realised that something needed to change and began scrutinising every cost he had on the farm.
Then, 9 years ago, he switched to organic farming and last year, through direct selling his beef and support payments, the farm made a profit north of €50,000.
The farm
Clive is farming a total of 58ha of land. The soil type is heavy clay and a large area of the farm suffers from the presence of an iron pan below the topsoil.
The farm is stocked at approximately 0.7 livestock units(LU)/ha with 40LU on the farm altogether, including 15 suckler cows.
Some of the 2022-born calves on the farm:
All male prime cattle are finished on-farm as steers with no grain and their beef is sold directly to the consumer.
Clive’s simplistic model of suckler farming is one that is a work in progress and that he is molding to suit his own lifestyle. When the farm’s margins are discussed, one would find themselves asking: ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
Agriland paid a visit to the farm recently to find out more about Clive’s approach to profitable suckler farming.
The suckler herd and beef animals graze the farm as one single group, with the stockbull kept separate from the cows from the point of calving until breeding.
The grazing system is known as a Holistic Planned Grazing and is based on a dymanic rotation that focuses on the rate of grass growth and the variable period of recovery after each grazing event.
“The aim is to have the herd in the right place at the right time for the right reasons and to ensure the pasture is fully recovered before re-grazing”
Clive explained: “When the grass is growing fast we move the herd quickly through the rotation, this means they often leave a lot of grass behind, but when return to a given paddock, the area they grazed last time will have grown again to a vegetative stage, so there will be enough high-protein grass to feed them, but also a diversity of rougher stuff through the sward so they have access to fibre if they want it to balance their diet”
Clive believes that a conventional grazing system where paddocks are fully grazed down does not work for his system.
“If you graze out the paddock, they have a fantastic pasture the first day, a mediocre feed the next day and then you move them on, but by the time you get around to the end of your rotation it’s all gone too strong so you have to bale it out and skip paddocks,” he said.
“This type of grazing creates a wedge of grass, however, grazing holistically allows me to build up a dense blanket of grass across the whole farm during the growing season, so I have a resilient stock pile for winter grazing.”
When Agriland visited the farm, a turlough had been mowed for what Clive calls “insurance bales”.
The long-term plan is to push toward full-out wintering of livestock on standing fodder with no silage.
Last winter, Clive trialed his idea on half the herd where no silage was fed and they were left out to graze for the winter while the other half of the herd were housed and got silage from November to the middle of March.
“We cut our stocking rate back with the goal of trying to cut out costs further and to try achieve a full out-wintering. I think we will do that in time with more Silvopasture on the farm,” said Clive.
The cattle that are housed are bedded on woodchips with a coating of baled rushes on top.
All dung is composted to ensure rush seeds are neutralised before spreading the compost on the land.
“If you’re careful when cleaning out the shed, you can scrape off rushes and leave the woodchip and it’s generally dry enough to use again,” Clive explained.
“Rushes are really easy to save, we bale them up and let them season in the field. They are as good of bedding as bad straw.”
Suckler breeding
Breeding takes place for six weeks from August 1. All cows summer calve and all calve outside. Anything that’s not in-calf after six weeks of breeding is culled.
Last year, all cows were in-calf within the six weeks and Clive attributes his fertile herd to selective breeding and culling non fertile cows.
Clive’s choice of cow and bull is different to most suckler farmers. This year he is using a red Belted Galloway bull which he is very happy with. He has used Angus, Hereford and Shorthorn bulls in the past.
“Because I’m direct selling beef, my goals are different than farmers selling into the commodity market. I’m not trying to hit euroscale ratings, I’m trying to create an animal that tastes really good and will fatten naturally on grass,” said Clive.
“What I’m trying to achieve is a well finished beef animal that reaches around 600kg live with a carcass weight of 300kg.”
He explained that the breed variation “works well” because the different breeds mature at different rates.
“The mirage of different breeds mean they mature at different stages,” he said.
“Irish Moiled are quite slow maturing so although they may take 36 months to mature, they will still be tender, whereas an Angus, which typically finish under 30 months, could be quite tough if killed at 36 months”
Commenting on his cow type, he added: “I want a neat cow around 500-550kg. If you do the maths on it, you can keep three of them cows for two 750kg cows and if you do the maths on the kgs of beef you can get out of those three cows, you get more.”
Clive participates in the Beef Data Genomics Programme (BDGP) and says it suits his system well, but noted the stipulation to have a bull in the herd for the end of June was problematic. He has a full herd of five-star cows.
Going organic
Clive converted to organics 9 years ago and attributed his early inspiration to go organic farming to the chef Darina Allen.
“I remember watching her on the telly with my mum when I was little and she would be talking about organic produce from their farm at Ballymaloe Cookery School, and it kind of peaked my interest,” he said.
The farm was originally a small 80s-model conventional dairy farm that was milking 24-30 cows and spreading a small amount of fertiliser, after which it switched to a conventional suckler farm.
Clive completed his Greencert at Teagasc Ballymote.
“I said I’d give it a couple of years doing it the conventional suckler farming model they were teaching,” he said.
“I took soil tests and got the pH right, but heavy applications of the synthetic NPK completely destroyed some of the fields. It ruined the soil structure.”
Clive believes “too much nitrogen and slurry killed all the microbiology in the soil.”
“We have really heavy clay here and it’s quite sensitive. It just did not suit the synthetic inputs and the surface of the field got really greasy.”
He told himself “this isn’t the way I want to be doing things and it’s not working for me” and so set about reigniting his interest organic farming.
Silvopasture
In an effort to tackle the iron pan below the topsoil on the land, Clive has plans to incorporate silvopasture into his grazing platform.
Explaining his reasons for this, he said: “I could come out and top these rushes three times a year and it would look greener, but it would have cost a load of diesel and wouldn’t have solved the rush problem – it would just look slightly better.”
“I used to spray the rushes and that would get rid of them for a few years but it didn’t solve the reason they were growing in the first place,” he continued.
“The only way to address these things is to tackle the root cause. Trees can correct a dysfunctional watercycle, restore soil function and get rid of rushes.”
While Clive does have a use for rushes in the form of cattle bedding, he admitted: “Rushes are the one weed I wouldn’t canvass for because they don’t really repair soil.
“They like stagnated soil that’s not functioning and has a poor water cycle. Stagnation is the last thing you want in agriculture, you want it dynamic and constantly improving.”
He explained that Alder trees will fix nitrogen in the soil: “Rhizobia is the bacteria legumes use but the Alder trees use Frankia bacteria through a similar mechanism.”
Suckler farm produce sales
Clive sells beef and rose veal direct to consumers across Ireland through his own brand ‘Rare Ruminare’.
The prime beef is sold at €15/kg and the rose veal is sold at €20/kg. The beef is sold in 20kg boxes and a finished beef animal generally fills 10 beef boxes.
Clive said he allocates roughly one hour of time to every sale.
The farm’s financial performance in 2021: Income Beef sales €33,486 Direct payments €24,160 Organic farming scheme (OFS) €9,860 Total income: €67,506 Expenses: Vet: €550 Accountant: €900 Contractor: €3,500 Insurance: €1,200 Abattoir: €4,585 Electricity: €1,100 Phone: €405 Fencing: €1,500 Machinery: €1,130 Motor: €2,300 Total costs: €17,170 Profit: €50,336
Clive is very modest, but admitted that his beef enterprise is netting €20,000 before direct payments are accounted for.
Clive is a capable artist (read more on this via the link below) but admits he gets little time for his artwork as he is currently building a house in his spare time.
In the future he plans to continue to develop and grow his suckler enterprise and achieve a full out-wintering through incorporating measures such as silvopasture to his grazing ground.