Thomas Duffy from Cavan receives an Adjudicator Award from Seán Finan, President of Macra na Feirme, and Fiona Muldoon, CEO of FBD.

Virginia farmer takes home Adjudicator's award

Damian McCarney


A Ramor dairy farmer took home the FBD Young Farmer of the Year Adjudicator’s prize at an awards ceremony in Drogheda last week.
Thomas Duffy had been selected to represent the county for dairy, while Ciaran O’Connell went forward for Cavan in the beef sector.
There were sector prizes for dairy, beef, tillage and sheep as well as two adjudicator prizes, “or wildcards” as a delighted Thomas calls them when talking to the Celt.
In the first round Thomas was an interviewed by three judges in Moorepark early this year, and made it through to last Tuesday’s final in the Boyne Valley Hotel and Country Club where he had to negotiate another gruelling interview before a panel of seven agri-experts chaired by Michael Hoey, MD of Country Crest.
Thomas shares a joint herd number with his father Ned and mother Kathleen Duffy, a couple well known for their voluntary work in the Virginia Show, and also Kathleen’s popular Stand in the Gap monthly column for this newspaper.
“There was a wee bit of nerves,” he said of the interviews. “I actually found the final six less difficult, because I had an idea of the type of questions that were coming up. But there was no pressure on us, it was actually very good - it was an educational experience as much as anything.”
The overall prize of the 18th FBD Young Farmer of the Year was awarded to Kevin Moran, a 23-year old dairy farmer from Claremorris and Thomas was glowing in his praise.
“He is an exceptional guy - he’s established in his own right with a lease and is now milking 220 cows in a very short period of time - he’s a very driven young man.”

Recognition
Given the terrible year it has been for all dairy farmers, this award is all the more welcome for Thomas.
“It’s very very nice to get recognition, and to have learned so much from it. One of the things I learned from it is the ability and quality of so many of the young farmers out there, and how they are dealing with different issues they have in front of them...
“The scale didn’t matter, what mattered was how you dealt with challenges on your farm - how you dealt with the individual problems you had to face and how you overcame them or managed them.”
Access to land as a grazing platform was the chief problem on the Duffys’ Edenburt farm. Located halfway between Virginia and Kells it is split into three roughly equal sized blocks.
“That’s a very common thing in Cavan. I don’t think there’s much of a culture of renting or leasing land the way there is down south, and there’s a lot of fragmentation on farms, there’s a lot of competition for land in Cavan, particularly if it is good quality land.”
He notes that if the entire Duffy farm was on one block they would be able to increase their dairy herd.
“At the same time I’m able to make plenty of silage and milk well at the shoulders in the spring and autumn when the climate cools again. But I am quite lucky to have quite a dry farm because of where I am in east Cavan compared, to some of the other lads who are dealing with quote heavy land.
This year it has been actually quite good for us - in terms of grass growth, it has been excellent.”