Agriland’s Instagram account will be in the hands of Tipperary farmer Mark Collins tomorrow, Friday, November 5, as he takes our followers through his day-to-day in his second ever Agriland Instagram takeover.
Mark is a fulltime dairy farmer with a degree in Dairy Business from University College Dublin (UCD). He operates a grass-based, spring-calving system alongside his parents.
Speaking ahead of his Instagram takeover tomorrow, Mark said:
“Reading back over the article from January, I’m thinking deeply about what has changed over the past few months.
“It might seem like so little, yet at the same time so much.”
Mark said that the past year has been spent largely covering the “small things that making the farm well set up”.
“I suppose on our farm this year we have really caught up on a backlog of jobs that have built up after expanding the farm over the last number of years,” he said.
“Simple things, like fencing, picking stones and upgrading some water troughs.”
He continued:
“I think there has been an increase in pressure on the environmental side of things.
“[We are] after taking on many new technologies and practices over the last number of years, such as low emissions slurry spreading (LESS), protected urea and improved breeding strategies etc. to improve the sustainability of the farm and decrease emissions.
“We have been focusing on what are the next steps forward to improve our environmental, economic and social sustainability of our family farming business,” he concluded.
For anyone with questions on how Mark’s farm has changed over the past year, be sure to tune in to his takeover as last year, he implemented a popular Q&A session via Instagram questions.
MC Milking It
On his personal social media Mark goes by the name ‘MC Milking It’. He runs a popular farming YouTube channel under the pseudonym, with his most viewed video raking in over 160,000 views.
Watch the video – titled ‘Day in the Life / March / Milking 400 cows in a 60 stall rotary’ – below:
The channel incudes more videos like the above, as well as following Mark around as he tackles specific jobs on the farm – i.e. making silage, filing a ‘big hole’ – showing the farm’s latest purchases – i.e. a new slurry tanker – and general funny bits around the farm.
Be sure to follow our Instagram to keep up to date with Mark this Friday, November 5.