John Hunt is nothing if not humorous about the quality of the land at his 120-acre holding in Athea, Co Limerick: «There’s about 30 acres of heavy land always begging for the sunshine, and of the rest, you might get 50 acres out of it if you squeezed hard enough. And I mean really hard.»
Some of his neighbours are just as witty, with one describing parts of the Hunt farm as land «which would only be recognised as such by the shipwrecked».
«It’s hard land to work so you just have to be efficient to work with what you have,» says John.
He also emphasises that anyone in farming would have to be an optimist at the best of times, especially when it comes to balancing the books.
«It’s a struggle to keep the books balanced. It’s a struggle, but you have to look on the bright side.»
At the moment, John still has to pay off his contractor bills from last year and his balance at his co-op, but he immediately returns to the bright side and talks at length about the weather.
«The weather has been fantastic down here for the past few months and the forecasts for the next few months are great,» he adds with the relief of a man who farms heavy land.
John runs a 48 head of Holstein-Friesians, which produce 29 litres per cow per day of good milk for the Kerry group. He is happy with his latest milk price 33c/l. «It is much better than last year and it gives you hope for the rest of the year.»
He also has some of his farm operating under the GLAS scheme with five hectares assigned to the GLAS pasture scheme and a further eight hectares in the Hen Harrier scheme, and he has about 15 bird boxes. «Small birds – snipe and pheasants – and we have red squirrel on the farm.»
He is happy overall with the GLAS scheme, which he says is not overburdened with paperwork, though he has a problem with the calendar farming aspects of the scheme. He would prefer to cut his grass, for instance, when the sun has transformed the stuff to a cutting-ready condition. Think of the shipwrecked here.
John has an additional 40 acres under forestry in an off-farm block, with the trees varying in age from five years to 25, and he works part time with The Forestry Company, a local company specialising in the planting, thinning, construction of forest roads and general maintenance of plantations throughout the region.
He is currently working on planning a new 10 hectare forest for a client on the felling of another similar sized forest in the region. A busy itinerary indeed and he still needs the help of his dad, Thady – a sprightly 82-year-old – around the farm.
Married to Nora, a clinical nurse manager at St Ita’s in Newcastle West, whom he met while he was working in Wolverhampton many moons ago, the couple have four children – Ciara (16), TJ (13), James ( 11) and the latest arrival, Alice (2).
John stresses, with some certainty, that it takes two incomes to run a family and a family farm in Ireland these days.
Then I ask about his pastimes and off-farm interests only to be met by a long pronounced pause.
«Eh. Eh, I take an interest in the local GAA,» he eventually reveals. «And I coach the under 14 football team. We regularly find it hard to make up the numbers, but you must remember, we have a small population around here. We’ve won no honours yet,» he adds.
Source: Independent
Link: http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/dairy-farmer-on-farming-some-of-the-toughest-land-in-the-country-35767793.html