The past 18 months have presented Ballinasloe Co-operative Livestock Mart with unprecedented difficulties but manager Eilish Curley and her dedicated team have stood up to the challenges to come out the other end stronger and better equipped than ever to serve farmers’ needs. We touched base with Roscommon native Eilish to get an update on day-to-day activities at one of Connacht’s oldest and busiest marts.
Things have certainly changed at Ballinasloe Co-operative Livestock Mart since the pandemic visited Irish shores in March, 2020, but this is a classic case of the more things change the more they stay the same. Having come through the most testing period in its impressive 63-year history, Ballinasloe Mart continues to invariably provide members of the agricultural fraternity from near and far with professional, efficient and wholly customer-focussed services.
Down through the decades, Ballinasloe Co-operative Livestock Mart has become an integral part of life for the farming communities not just of counties Galway, Roscommon, Westmeath, Offaly and Tipperary but – due to its close proximity to the M6 motorway – also draws buyers and sellers from island-wide, including a number of visitors from Northern Ireland.
However, nothing could have prepared mart manager Eilish Curley and her colleagues for the unforeseeable challenges presented by the public health restrictions implemented as part of the national response to the Covid-19 emergency. In order to survive and to continue to look after customers, the business model had to be completely reinvented, including embracing online sales for the first time in the mart’s history. Although the circumstances have obviously been far from ideal, the measures introduced have proven to be extremely popular with appreciative buyers and sellers:
“I think it’s fair to say we’ve never had a year and a half like this,” Eilish confirms. “The Covid restrictions have changed everything and we’ve had to adapt and evolve accordingly. Extra staff are needed as the workload has increased a lot. For a time, when the first lockdown happened, we had no sales at all, then we were just doing sales by weight and eventually we went online.
“We did have to close for a while at the beginning but we still put buyers and sellers in contact with one another during that time. A lot of sellers had stock ready to go and it was their time to sell it. We helped out as best we could. From our perspective, as we had a huge volume of sales booked in and then had to effectively close our doors overnight, it was extremely tough.”
The move to online sales marked a new departure for Ballinasloe Co-operative Livestock Mart but they have taken it very much in their stride. “We started selling online in May of last year and it has worked out very well,” Eilish reflects. “We were very lucky in that we had fibre optic broadband in place, which allowed us to roll out an excellent, reliable service.
“Online sales have been a major success. Things have improved for everybody since we started providing that service and it’s definitely going to remain in place moving forward.”
Operating a three-ring system and with 1,000 shareholders, Ballinasloe Co-operative Mart employs two livestock auctioneers and twenty employees, with staff numbers increasing up to two-fold during peak times. Eilish, who had served as secretary before being appointed mart manager in October, 2015, says the team has stepped up to the challenge big time throughout the course of the pandemic to date:
“The staff have been outstanding and I couldn’t compliment them enough,” she reveals. “A lot has been demanded of them over recent months but they have stood up to be counted and they couldn’t do enough. They are excellent at taking the baton and it was because of their hard work that we’ve been able to keep going.”
At the time of writing, Ballinasloe Co-operative Livestock Mart was providing its popular online platform in conjunction with thrice-weekly ring sales, which take place on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, albeit with certain restrictions remaining in place.
“We can still only have a limited number of buyers in the ring, while facemasks must still be worn and social distancing must be observed. Hand sanitiser has to be provided and we have to keep a list of all people who enter the sales yard. It’s not ideal as obviously there is extra work and time involved and you are not still at full capacity but the reality is that every business has had to deal with similar issues over the past 18 months and it had been a difficult time for everybody.”
Needless to say, throughput has been down compared to pre-pandemic times… “Yes, of course, sales went back considerably but all other marts are in the same boat. This is the result of unprecedented times. While a certain amount of normality has returned, we are not back to full capacity yet and people still can’t just come and go as they please. We’re allowed 25 buyers in the ring at a two-metre distance from one another and the seller is also allowed in if they wish.
“But a lot of them really prefer the online experience and some people remain nervous about coming into a crowded area again. So, if they wish, sellers can just drop off their stock and we will let them know when the sale goes through. If they are happy with the price, it will go ahead. It really looks like online sales are here to stay and ideally, long term, we’d be aiming to get a good mix of both online and ring sales.”
Traditionally, Ballinasloe Co-operative Livestock Mart has been a hub of activity in the east Galway town – one of the main gateways to the West – three days a week. Wednesday is cattle sales day which means bullocks, heifers and culled / stripper cows. On Thursday evenings, attention turns to sheep sales (lambs, culled ewes, breeding ewes, hoggets and rams) while Saturdays host the buying and selling of calves, suckler cows, in-calf heifers, weanling bulls, weanling heifers and occasionally stock bulls.
“We still have extra staff on hand to make sure that everything continues to run smoothly,” Eilish concludes. “The mart means a lot to the life of the town and mart day is still a busy day in Ballinasloe, although not to the extent it was pre-Covid. But hopefully over the coming months, we’ll see further restrictions reversed and things can gradually move back closer to normal. That would give everybody a major boost – and we could all do with it!”
Having continued to look after the needs of farmers under the most demanding of circumstances, everybody associated with Ballinasloe Mart can take huge confidence from the proactive nature in which they have responded to the severe disruption wrought by the pandemic since the Spring of 2020. This long-serving mart boasts a proud history, a resilient present and its future has been preserved through hard work and forward thinking.
Ballinasloe Co-operative Livestock Mart Ltd.,
Cleaghmore,
Ballinasloe,
County Galway.
Tel: 090 9642384 / 9642455
Email: [email protected]
Web: ballinasloemart.ie/
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 10 No 1, January/February 2022
Ballinasloe Co-operative Livestock Mart
