Moate farmer hands over IGA presidency
Alan Kelly from Moate handed over the presidential chain to Bryan Hynes, a dairy farmer from Galway, at the AGM of the Irish Grassland Association CLG in the Mullingar Park Hotel.
Dr Alan Kelly holds an honours degree in Animal Science (2006) and a PhD in Cattle Nutritional Physiology (2009) from University College Dublin (UCD). Since 2011, he has been employed as a lecturer in animal science at the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science.
He lectured and coordinated modules mainly in the areas of advanced beef production and ruminant nutrition and is the current director of Animal and Crop Science Degree Programme in UCD.
His research area of interest include the development of blueprints for sustainable pastoral based beef production systems. His research work has an innovative focus and the objective of improving economically important traits (feed intake, growth, feed efficiency, fertility and ruminal methanogenesis) through strategic nutritional intervention or discovery of underlying physiological or molecular mechanisms.
He has published extensively on those topics and has presented the findings of this research at national and international conferences.
Additionally, he has developed a significant extension role, having provided continuous professional development (CPD) courses to veterinary and agricultural science graduates and industry representatives, and regularly writes technical articles in the agricultural press. Alan is also secretary of European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP) Animal Physiology Commission and is the immediate past president of the Irish Limousin Cattle Society. He also is a member of the DAFM Food Vision 2030 Beef Stakeholder Group.
He said: “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the helm of the IGA. I am thankful to the support I received from the executive and the wider council. The IGA team have great workability, fun and respect for one another, which is fundamental to the functioning of all organisations.”
End of term retirements followed from Mary McEvoy, Germinal Seeds, who served six years as an elected council member; Karina Pierce, UCD, and Terry Carroll, Teagasc, who both served one year.
Bryan Hynes, as newly appointed IGA president, welcomed his three co-opted council members to the team, who will all serve one year on the council: Conor Holohan AFBI, Tom Coll Teagasc and Aidan Murray Teagasc.
Local dairy
farmer to
headline spring conference
The IGA host their two-day spring dairy events on January 9-10, and GD Young, a dairy farmer from Mullingar, will headline the conference. He will share his insights and experience on how he is managing his business with tighter margins.
GD is farming with his wife Caroline and their three children, milking 400 cows.
GD grew up in Scotland and began his farming career in the mid-1990s when he returned home to work on the family farm, milking 120 cows.
In the late ‘90s the opportunity came to buy out his uncle, who was milking 100 cows, and that allowed them to amalgamate the two herds to improve labour efficiency.
Cow output steadily increased to 9,500 litres per cow on a high input system. Poor returns and difficulty in finding labour led them to quit dairying and convert to sheep and sucklers in 2011.
They set up their own brand, ‘Argyll Angus’, to help market their own beef by targeting the local tourist market. In 2015 they purchased their current farm in Mullingar, after selling their farms in Scotland, to start their new enterprise.