Young farmer Linda wins national award
A west Wicklow farmer has received a top honour at the 2018 FBD Young Farmer of the Year Awards.
Linda Hanbidge-Cliffe won the award for Collaborative Farming at a special ceremony in the Castleknock Hotel in Dublin on Tuesday, September 11.
A member of Baltinglass/ Rathvilly Macra na Feirme, Linda farms with her father Alan and brother Gordon.
In 2015, the family almost doubled the herd from 55 cows and now milk 105 Montbéliarde cows on a winter milk basis, calving 20 per cent in winter and the remaining 80 per cent in the spring. Linda went into a partnership with her father and brother in 2015 when they built a new 16-unit Dairymaster parlour. They have concentrated heavily on grass quality, herd fertility and the calving period for the last few years.
Patrick Byrne, a member of Tullow Macra na Feirme, was crowned the Best Emerging Male Farmer at the awards.
Macra na Feirme National President James Healy described the awards as ‘one of the jewels in the crown’ of the Macra na Feirme calendar and a night when ‘the farming industry comes together to recognise the brightest and best young farmers in the country’.
The competition aims to recognise and reward the top young farmers in the country. Entrants are judged according to a number of criteria, including farm business initiative and innovation, levels of farm efficiency and enterprise quality, farm safety and environmental protection awareness, as well as agricultural knowledge and community involvement.
‘The farmers of the future will have to be resilient, agile and adaptable,’ said Mr Healy. ‘If this year’s weather events have taught us anything, it is that the ability to confront unexpected challenges will have to be in every farmer’s armoury. In its 20 year history, the FBD Young Farmer of the Year event has successfully drawn the best from the candidates and has always chosen a winner that represents everything that is good about the emerging talent in Irish farming’.
Daniel Hawthorne, a 24-year-old beef farmer from Co Monaghan, took home the top prize of the 2018 FBD Young Farmer of the Year.