The most recent ‘Tillage Edge’ podcast featured a discussion between Teagasc’s Michael Hennessy and Kildare man, Jim McCarthy, now farming 20,000ha in Romania.
While still having strong farming connections with Castledermot, Co. Kildare, McCarthy has developed a number of overseas farming initiatives.
The first of these was centred in Argentina. However, recent years have seen McCarthy focus his attention on what Romania has to offer, from a crop production perspective.
Hennessy started-off the conversation by highlighting the truly international dimension that lies at the heart of the world’s grain markets.
He said: “The global markets for cereals continue to increase with global supply continuing to keep up.
“This year has shown that if there is any disruption at all in supply, the price of cereals starts to rocket.
“Irish tillage farmers are at the mercy of international grain supply levels. Courtesy of his current farming operation in Romania, Jim McCarthy supplies the Black Sea ports. This is one of the world’s bell weather cereal markets,” Hennessy added.
Land ownership in Romania
McCarthy described his commitment to Romania as being based on the fact that it was possible to secure land ownership in that country.
A round of initial fundraising facilitated the purchase of the first company in 2014.
He added: “We have since bought six companies and are about to close our seventh. Currently we own 9,000ha outright, we rent 2,500ha and share farm a further 2,700ha.
“We are in north east Romania. The seventh deal should be closed within days, which means that next spring we will be controlling 20,000ha.”
Next year will see McCarthy’s business operation farming 15,500ha in Romania.
He explained: “We will rent out around 2,800ha. Our own focus will be on growing a wide range of tillage crops.”
Ground for crops in Romania
Rainfall was the key driver in determining the area of Romania that was selected by McCarthy.
“The region receives, on average, 550mm of rain per year. However, a significant proportion of the rain that we get falls during the months of June, July and August,” he explained.
“The soils we are farming have a high clay content and contain only 15% sand.
“We stopped ploughing seven years ago, which has helped build up soil organic matters to 5%. As a result, the soils will hold moisture well. However, over the last number of years, annual rainfall levels have dropped back to around 440mm.
“The exception to this was 2021, which saw the rains returning to a more normal pattern. As a result, we harvested bumper crops.”
McCarthy knew, from the outset, that many of the soils he was working in Romania had pH values below 6.0.
He commented: “It was for this reason that we started from the outset. This allowed us to secure lime from the factory, which comes to us in a very purified form.
“On the back of this supply, we have spread over 30,000t of lime across our cropping area. This process brought our soil pH values up to where they should be.”