Based in Ballydekin House, Midleton, Co Cork, Daly Agrifarm Ltd offers its customers a vast range of agricultural contracting services. Irish Tractor Agri & Plant spoke with Sean Collins to find out more about what is a thriving business down south which operates with top of the line machinery and excellent operators week in, week out.
These are busy times at Daly Agrifarm Ltd and the plan for brothers Jack and Liam Daly, along with the rest of the team in Ballydekin House, is to try and keep things that way right through to next year.
The company operates with five full-time staff and is renowned amongst its customers for being a ‘one-stop shop’ for those looking for agri contracting services.
Sean Collins has been part of the team at Daly Agrifarm Ltd for half a decade now and knows all about the ins and outs of what is a thriving business with a solid reputation.
Irish Tractor Agri & Plant caught up with the Co Cork native to hear all about the variety of services the company provides, including a new one added just this year, and its hopes going forward.
“From the start of the year, we’ve started to provide a slurry spreading system, two tankers, a 4,000-gallon tank which is an Abbey and a 3,000-gallon tank which is a Red Rock,” Sean outlined.
“We have two agitators, an Abbey Rapid and we got into pipe slurry this year as well. We have 2,000 metres of pipe with it.”
He added: “The pipe slurry has been going great in fairness and we can’t fault it at all. It’s been going well for us since we started it.”
The list of services that Daly Agrifarm Ltd provides its customers is a long one and it’s part of the reason why so many farmers in and around Midleton and out towards Cork city choose the family-run venture first ahead of other competitors out there.
Those services include slurry, pipe slurry, agitating, ploughing, grass reseeding, rolling for grass, maize, set maize under plastic, all sorts of tilling, bulk fertiliser spreading, selling and spreading lime, a hi-spec dung spreader, round baler that will bale silage, pit silage, mowing, two Class rakes, Krone tedder and sandblasting.
As well as the above, the Dalys have a farm of their own and, between grassland and tillage land, they are farming around in and around 1,500 acres.
Of course, all of the above cannot be done sufficiently without the correct machinery and Daly Agrifarm Ltd has it in spades.
“We have four John Deeres, two New Hollands and then we hire in two tractors for the mowing,” said Sean.
“We have three square balers, a Krone BiG Pack, a Fendt chopper baler and we have a New Holland 8x4x4.
“We have two artic lorries here as well – a Scania S500 and a Volvo F460.”
All of the equipment at Daly Agrifarm Ltd is maintained to the very top standards in order to ensure that the best results are achieved when they’re in use.
Looking towards next year, Sean says that the Dalys plan to invest in some more new machinery so as to keep up with customer demand.
“We probably won’t trade in a tractor, we’ll probably buy two new straight,” he said.
“We were looking at the option of buying a second combine, but we’re going to hold off on that and see what next year will bring.”
Indeed, business is good right now and, with its vast array of services, it looks set to stay that way with Daly Agrifarm Ltd into 2024.
So, all of that considered, the burning question is what has been the secret to the company’s success thus far?
How has a small start-up grown into what is now today a thriving agri contracting business with a golden reputation amongst its customers.
For Sean, a good reliable service combined with excellent machinery goes a long way in this line of work.
“We provide a good service and we provide it as good as we can on time for the customer,” he said.
“We’ve good machinery and good lads operating the machinery, and, I suppose, we’re in a good location where we are in east Cork as it’s only two miles outside of Midleton town.
“So, we’d be in a very good tillage and dairy area. We also have a good bit of work up just outside of the city, operating within a 30-mile radius of where we are.
“We also sell a lot of straw, beet and maize and that gets us other work as well.”
Along with existing customers, Daly Agrifarm Ltd “seem to be continually picking up new jobs here and there”, according to Sean, while maintaining their strong client base around the east Cork region.
Up and running seven years now, it all makes for a promising looking future for the Dalys’ agri contracting venture.
Its growth to date can also be measured by its rapid rise of social media followers in recent times.
Sean himself runs the company’s TikTok and SnapChat accounts and, going on the evidence online, the Corkonian has been doing a fantastic job on that front as well, with the machines and the work they do attracting thousands of followers on social media.
“We’ve a TikTok account (seancollins970) and its popular enough with nearly 10,000 followers,”
“I’ve a SnapChat as well which is speedstar_900 that has about 3,000 followers as well, so it’s great to see it getting that traction and interest,” he concluded.
Great to hear.
Daly Agrifarm Ltd
Ballydekin House,
Midleton,
Co Cork
Mobile: 087 418 6768
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 11 No 5, October/November 2023
