Tipperary-based company Herdwatch will kick off its presence at the National Ploughing Championships in Co. Laois next week with ‘Farmer Phil’ as the company’s special guest.
The championships will return to Ratheniska from September 20-22, after a hiatus in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year is a little different, as it will include the World Ploughing Championships, which had been set to take place in Russia, but the location was changed to Ireland when the war in Ukraine began.
Some members of the Herdwatch team are based in Ukraine and their Irish friends and colleagues in Herdwatch raised funds earlier in the year in recognition of the difficulties they are experiencing at present.
Over €10,000 was raised and donated to The Chernobyl Children’s Project which is actively supporting people in Ukraine.
Ploughing
Herdwatch is gearing up for a busy three days next week and has announced that YouTube and farming star, ‘Farmer Phil’, whose real name is Philip Stewart, will be joining them on the first day to kick off the event.
Fabien Peyaud, Herdwatch CEO and co-founder said: ”The team and I cannot wait to return to Ratheniska, which holds a special place in our hearts as this is where the Herdwatch story started, almost 10 years ago.”
Herdwatch, which is part of FRS Farm Relief, will be showcasing their new sheep management app, Flockwatch, which was launched earlier this year.
As well as having Farmer Phil on stand, Herdwatch will be running a competition on each day of the ploughing for an electronic identification (EID) reader and a Herdwatch jacket.
The Herdwatch app developed by the Tipperary company allows recording of medicines and feed purchases for compliance; scanning of medicines and ear tags with phone camera; calf birth registration in under a minute; record weights in seconds; manage full breeding cycle, fully integrated with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).