Síolta Chroí

Monaghan Business & Tourism Awards

Síolta Chroí is a finalist in the 'Best Green Business' category in this year's Monaghan Business & Tourism Awards...

Tell us about your business and team:

Síolta Chroí offers training courses, educational programmes, and farm tours at its demonstration centre in Carrickmacross, welcoming over 1,000 participants in recent years. A central focus of its work is supporting farmers in adopting regenerative agriculture. To this end, Síolta Chroí developed a six-week introduction to a Regenerative Agriculture course tailored specifically for farmers.

Visitors include groups from across Ireland and beyond such as UCD, Maynooth University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Chicago, as well as regional secondary schools. The organisation has also hosted international groups from Romania, Poland, Finland, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Describe the best thing about your service:

Síolta Chroí’s is a living demonstration site for living sustainably with its education centre built with strawbale! Over 1,000 people have gone through the site to date, including 150 farmers across Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan seeing what is possible when people change their relationship with wider nature. Wide scale ecosystem regeneration is possible. And this would benefit everyone.

What really sets Síolta Chroí apart is its co-design and interactive approach, which allows them to engage with farmers and people on its courses in ways that can be truly transformative in terms of their relationship with the land and their role in ecosystem restoration and climate change.

What's the best business advice you've ever been given?

Do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.

What does the future hold for your business?

Our future focus is to expand our work across Ireland, especially supporting more farmers in adopting regenerative practices. We aim to provide a peer-to-peer network beyond our courses in the shape of a monthly peer support network, enabling farmers to share experiences, overcome challenges, and continue learning together as they implement changes on their farms.