The greener side of farming
“A HAPPY cow is a healthy cow,” says Merle Tanner from Coachford, whose love of cows started early.
From the age of two Merle could be found outside lying down with the cows. “I didn’t like school much so when I left, my father bought me three pedigree heifers. I fed them every day and bred them from there up. I just love their temperament,” she says.
On her 45 ha (100 acre) farm at Coachford, Merle along with her husband Tom and son Shane are involved in all aspects of the farm, such as grassland management, tillage and machinery, but Merle manages the dairy herd of 50 cows and supplies milk to Dairygold Coop, where it is made into cheese, milk powder or ingredients for the infant formula market.
Merle is a certified member of the Bord Bia Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme (SDAS) and participates in a farm sustainability survey as part of the audit. This means she is a member of Origin Green.
When Merle bought the farm at Coachford as a greenfield site, she worked with Ger McMahon in Teagasc and De Laval to design a new 12 unit milking parlour and cow housing exactly as she wanted it for her cows.
“It’s food we’re producing at the end of the day, so I want to make sure it’s done absolutely right,” she says.
Merle continuously works to improve the efficiencies on her farm. She has recently changed from electricity to gas for heating the water in the milking parlour. “This has given us a big saving on our energy bills,’” she says. She is also looking into the costs and benefits of installing solar panels.
Merle believes that these things are important for the sustainability of the farm. Her philosophy is to strive to do the best she can, while keeping her costs down as much as possible.
Merle has restored the old farmhouse on the land, built in the 1800s. She also took several measures to improve the landscape, planting 4,000 metres of hedgerows around the perimeter of the entire farm and in passageways. She has also planted trees such as Ash, Oak, Maple, Lime, Scots Pine and Roan and installed a pond.
Merle is passionate about keeping the biodiversity of her farm intact and gets great personal enjoyment from nature. “It’s important for everyone on the farm to have a beautiful place to work and a beautiful place to live,” she says. “When you look after nature, it rewards you back.”
She has no intention of increasing her number of cows. “I can comfortably manage the amount I have and they want for nothing.”
By participating in SDAS, Origin Green farmers can measure and benchmark their sustainability practices, helping them to identify efficiencies which they can improve on their own farm, which can also improve profitability.
Key improvement measures on dairy farms taking part in SDAS and the sustainability survey include: Increased Economic Breeding Index (EBI), longer grazing season, improved nitrogen use efficiency, improved slurry management and energy efficiency.
Merle has a pedigree Friesian herd and the cows are strip grazed outside from early February to the end of November depending on the weather. Merle also grows barley and includes a certain amount of straw in the cows’ diet, as well as using it for bedding.
“As a manufacturer of high quality dairy nutritional ingredients, the Origin Green programme is important to Dairygold both at farm and processing level,” says Dave Fitzgerald, Head of Sustainability and Business Continuity, Dairygold Co-op. “It demonstrates to our customers that we are measuring and improving the sustainability of our supply chain and provides independent certification to prove it.”