Run of the mill business
EAR TO THE GROUND
RTE One, 8.30pm
FOR years organic farmer Kevin Scully grew oats to feed his cattle but one day when his daughter asked him if they could make porridge with the oats, an idea was born for a new business.
Now Kevin, his wife Jenny and their four girls grow oats which are harvested with their own combine harvester – ensuring that they are gluten free. They are then milled for porridge and ground for flour.
Helen Carroll went to the Scully farm in Vicarstown, Co Laois, during the summer to see Kevin harvest the year’s crop and even helped mill and pack some oats and flour for The Merry Mill.
On Linalla Farm, 70 cows walking on water is not an unusual sight as the Fahy family of New Quay in Co Clare bring their cows to fresh pasture on their island farm.
Like a lot of farmers in the West, the farm is fragmented, with fields scattered a long way from their milking parlour.
But the Fahys are determined to continue their family’s tradition of farming in this beautiful part of the Burren.
Roger and Brid’s eldest son has returned home in recent years to expand the dairy herd, while Brid has developed a coffee shop and ice cream parlour to capitalise on the Wild Atlantic Way tourists.
We also meet friends Sinead Moran and Nathalie Markiefka who set up website Foodture after realising a shared concern over where food is coming from and what say we have in that.