The Crowley family based in Carrigoon, Mallow farm over 1,000 acres throughout the Rebel County and in Tipperary. For this month’s edition of Irish Tractor & Agri, we profile this family run business and speak to John Crowley about the trials and tribulations of farming in modern day Ireland.
Like all farmers, the Crowleys have witnessed the good times and bad, but through hard work and dedication to their livelihoods, they have grown the farm into one of the largest in the Munster region today.
The Crowley farm is run on a full time basis by brothers John and Dennis Crowley along with the help of their father Denis Snr.
Traditionally, the farm was heavily involved in sugar beet production and the loss of this crop brought about substantial change in the farming system.
As well as the inevitable financial loss, farm rotation also suffered and winter cereals are now the main focus. John and Denis are the two main labour units on the farm with some additional help at harvest and planting.
Therefore the efficiency of the operation is key to completing necessary farm operations in a timely manner. Soil types vary with location across the different farms from medium to heavy.
The Crowley’s holding extends across north Cork within a radius of 50 miles from their base in Mallow. All grain is stored and dried before sale to maximise returns. One of the main challenges on the farm over the coming years is to maintain yields with their current rotation.
Currently, this is a relatively quiet time for the Crowley family, but John revealed that they are always kept going in preparing for their busy period.
“We would carry out a lot of maintenance work on the machinery over these few months to ensure that everything is working well when we need it,” said John.
“We harvest about 500 acres of winter wheat, 200 acres of spring barley and 400 acres of winter barley. All our focus is on cereals and we have land scattered across the county and we have about 300 acres located in Cahir, Co Tipperary.”
To carry out their various procedures during the year, John and Denis have an extensive fleet of machinery, all of which is kept in pristine condition with upgrades being carried out on a regular basis.
“There is one New Holland combine here and we change that every four years. We would deal with Kavanagh’s of Fermoy for that and they have a good business relationship with us.
“Other machinery that we have is a New Holland T7 270 tractor, which was bought brand new last year, we also have a Massey Ferguson 6490, and other machinery including a big square baler, while we have an artic Volvo truck that we draw grain and straw with during the year.
“With regards to upgrading, we try to do that as often as we can. Machinery is expensive, but we need to ensure that we have good machinery in order to carry out the workload that we have.
This Cork based family carry out all their own work and this includes ploughing and to do this they have a five and seven furrow ploughs which together ploughed up to 700 acres last year. They also have a Bredor fertiliser spreader, which allows to cover much acreage.
Crowley’s have been supplying the same customers with their grain and straw for a number of years and they have a good relationship with their customers.
“We draw some grain and straw to a piggery in Mitchelstown, while the rest of the grain would go to Southern Milling. We bring it direct to them so there is no middle man. We would dry and store the grain here also.”
The Irish weather means that this is a fickle industry to be involved in, but last year’s summer was one of the best in a long time and allowed Crowley’s to get all their work done with the minimum of fuss.
“We would always manage to get the crops harvested no matter how bad the weather is, but when it was like last year, it makes it all that more easier for us. There are huge time constraints, but we are fortunate to be farming some of the driest ground in the country and that makes a big difference.”
A few years back under the Teagasc Better Farm programme, Crowley Farms opened up their land to the public where tourists and locals were able to come along and look at the operation. The aim of the programme was for farmers to come together and discuss issues in the farming community. It brings the total resources of the organisation in a structure to effectively transfer usable knowledge from research to practicing farmers.
“I would like to thank Teagasc for the work that they have done with us. The three crop rule which the EU has introduced has come into effect since January 2015 does not help our cause and to be honest it is just madness really. Something needs to be done about it.”
Crowley Farms Ltd
Carrigoon,
Mallow,
Co Cork.
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 3, April 2015
