As well as being one of Ireland’s most northerly agricultural contractors, Lyle Agri – from its scenic base at the mouth of the Inishowen peninsula – offers high-quality services with an emphasis on traditional values. We touched base with proprietor Joey Lyle, who has tailored his contracting business to match the exact needs of the local farming community.
The terrain, topography, landscape, climate and heritage of any area will generally dictate the preferred farming practices in that specific region. This is why even an island as small as Ireland boasts such a rich and diverse agricultural industry. From Moville in County Donegal, a short spin from Malin Head – Ireland’s most northernmost tip – Joey Lyle has developed an exceptional, traditional agricultural contracting business ideally adapted to cater for prevailing local conditions and requirements.
“It’s mostly smaller farmers around here in Inishowen, who are looking for straightforward services,” the Donegal man notes. “While a few have moved into dairy, the vast majority of them are suckler and sheep farmers farming smaller holdings so we try not to over-complicate things.”
Joey, who has been contracting since the late 1980s but established Lyle Agri as a limited company in 2014, has built up a fleet of tractors and machinery to meet the specific requirements of these farmers, many of whom have been with him for 25-30 years. “New customers are hard to come by so all customers are valued. This means you have to give them the best possible service to ensure customer satisfaction.”
Thus, it is imperative to deliver professional workmanship in an efficient, timely and value-added manner. “You have to do every job right and approach each job as if your next one depends on it,” says Joey. “Once you have a happy customer, that’s a good start.”
Offering a general agri contracting service including grass (pit silage and round bales), slurry, reseeding, hedge cutting, lime spreading, etc., Joey is a second-generation farmer / contractor and he admits he was always destined to go down this road:
“I never knew anything else really and this is what I always wanted to do. My father [also Joe] would have contracted before me and it all started from him – that’s definitely where I got the interest from. There was no such thing as contracting back in those days – it was just a farmer who had some machinery and did a bit of work for his neighbours. I took over from my father and expanded it. I’ve been contracting seriously since the late ‘80s / early ‘90s and set up the limited company seven years ago, having worked as a sole trader prior to that.”
To supplement the contracting business, Joey keeps some dry stock on the home farm. “It can be quiet enough in the winter time, when I’d spend a good bit of my time doing maintenance on the machinery and getting everything ready for the following year. Then I also have the cattle to keep me going.
“I do hedge cutting as well but generally the work is all weather-related and we are busiest during the summer months, when I’d have a few lads in with me. The farmer always has something to do when the weather is good. Also, with the slurry bans in place, you have to wait each year before you can get started.”
Although an array of services is provided, Joey points out that “the big one would be grass. We work with two PÖTTINGER silage wagons since 2003 for pit silage and we also do round bales. That would be our main earner for the summer. Round Inishowen, grass season runs from mid-May until early September and wagons are very suitable for the area.
“I had a precision chop harvester prior to that but then took the step into wagon silage and a lot of local contractors have since gone down the same road. As I said earlier, it’s a small area here and wagons are better suited to the farmers needs as they are a lot handier and require less manpower. With having two wagons I can accommodate two customers on the one day or allocate two wagons to the one customer as all our work is weather dependent time is valuable.”
Joey has been bailing since the 1990s and runs a McHale baler, rake and orbital wrapper. For mowing, he owns and operates a KUHN trailed mower alongside a side-mounted KRONE (purchased this year to replace a second trailed Krone). Other items of machinery to be found in the yard at Cooley, Moville include a plough, power harrow, lime spreader and a JCB loading shovel, which is used predominantly for pushing up silage.
“We also provide a slurry service and have a unique machine for stitching grass into existing grass which we are busy with at this time of year.”
This flexible Agriseeder Seed Drill from Erth Engineering in County Down is perfect for sowing grass seed, clover or rapeseed into grass, burn off or stubble and is ideal for stony ground as it presents a quick and effective way to rejuvenate existing pastures or burn-off for a complete reseed.
Tractor-wise, Joey Lyle is a Massey Ferguson man. At present, he has six modern Masseys as well as a few vintage ones and a further couple of 100 series models which are still being used on the farm but will be restored shortly. Why Massey?
“Better the divil you know, I suppose! They are what we are used to working with and Donegal Tractors in Letterkenny and John McElderry in Ballymoney both give a very good service with Massey. As well as that, the workers get used to them and one is very much the same as another, so ease of use is another benefit.”
A brand-new 6715s was added to the fleet in February of this year along with a second-hand 2016-reg 7718 sourced through a dealer in Longford around the same time. Apart from one 2006 tractor, everything else is fresh, either 2015 or newer.
Going forward, Joey Lyle will strive to continue to offer his clients prompt, dependable services that are tailored to their exact needs, striking the right balance between traditional and modern methods wherever necessary. “For the slurry, we use slurry tankers and a splash plate,” he concludes. “That suits my needs for now. I know it is going to go down the road of trailing shoes and dribble bars eventually, though, and I will move with it when the time comes.”
Lyle Agri has an exceptional track record for quality contracting and, with an eye on both the present and the future – not forgetting the past – is perfectly poised to move with the times when the circumstances demand it.
Lyle Agri Ltd.,
Cooley
Moville,
County Donegal.
Tel: 086 2693165
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 10 No 1, January/February 2022
