Focus on safety also paying dividends with farm efficiency

“IT IS nice to be able to walk around a farmyard or farm in your slippers so that children or visitors can walk around safely without having to warn them about dangers that should not be there” says Fiachra Liston .

And it’s that approach which won him the ‘Safety Farmer’ award in the 2019 Farmer of the Year awards.

Tidiness, cleanliness and safety is evident throughout the Liston farm and farmyard. And in turn this helps drive farm efficiency.

“My father was always a man that wanted the place to be tidy and to have machinery properly serviced to avoid breaks at a busy time.”

Qualified personnel are contracted to service the equipment, the cost of which is recouped over time by having it operating properly when needed.

It has also contributed to a low turnover on machinery. One of the tractors on the farm is an 1989 model and another dates from 1994 with the original stickers still evident.

Silage harvesting, slurry spreading, reseeding of pasture, hedge cutting and general digger work is all contracted out.

Low emission slurry spreading has been used for a number of years and this is more important now than ever with the farm operating under a nitrates derogation.

Hedge trimming has switched from once a year to once every three years to meet the nitrates’ derogation requirement on biodiversity.

“It is an added cost because it takes longer only cutting every third year . Likewise, the low emission slurry spreading costs more, and we don’t directly see return for that in our pockets,” says Fiachra.

Fencing of waterways to meet the derogation requirements has also added to cost and some loss of land usage. Water is piped throughout the farm and each drinking trough is on a concrete base which helps to avoid poaching.