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Members of the Fitzgerald family with Prof Paddy Wall (UCD), Dr David Gleeson (Teagasc) and Mr Frank O’Flynn (Dairygold).

Fourteen dairy farms including one from Mitchelstown, have been short-listed as national finalists for the 2013 National Dairy Council and Kerrygold Quality Milk Awards.

The short listed farms received inspection visits from all three members of the expert judging panel - Professor Paddy Wall, Associate Professor of Public Health at UCD; Dr Jack Kennedy, Dairy Editor, Irish Farmers Journal; and Dr David Gleeson, Milk Quality Research, Teagasc. They scrutinised technical information and farm management practices supporting each farm’s consistently excellent quality milk standards. They also reviewed aspects of contemporary dairy farming ranging from sustainability and animal welfare to care of the environment.

Richard and Nora Fitzgerald from Gortnahown will represent Dairygold in the final, their nomination arising from originally winning the Mitchelstown regional award and subsequently taking the top prize within Dairygold Co-op for quality milk this year.

Richard took over the family farm from his father, Maurice, in 1984. Richard’s father bought the original 40 acre farm at Gortnahown, about 2.5 miles from Mitchelstown, in 1956. It has always been a dairy farm and Richard enjoys working with dairy cows.

He is currently milking 58 cows with average herd yield about 7,300 litres. He milks all year round but is not a liquid milk supplier – his milk goes to Dairygold Co-op to make casein and for products like milk powder for baby food.

Richard updated his milking parlour with a 10 unit De Laval milking unit in 2009/2010, which has automated cluster removals. He had a plate cooler fitted to improve efficiencies and uses energy efficient light bulbs.

Richard was a member of a dairy discussion group during 2012 and does milk recording on the farm. SCC levels are assessed at least ten times a month and TBC twice a month. The herd’s average TBC results are 11.41. Average SCC is 135, butterfat 4.192%, protein 3.522% and lactose 4.759%.

Cows are normally out on grass from February 25 to November 15 on a 21 day rotation grazing in paddocks. Two thirds of the land can be quite dry with the remaining one third quite heavy, which can make it challenging when the ground is wet.

Conservation measures include planting of laurel hedging to preserve habitats and planting of trees to provide shelter and screening of land.

Although milk quotas will be abolished in 2015 he sees the herd size as being at about 60 cows and would need more land to become available to increase the size of the herd.

Richard did buy an additional ten acres in 1987 after he took over the running of the farm, but in 2008 he lost 6.5 acres of that to a new road development, which reduced the size of the farm again back to about 43 acres or 17.6 hectares. He currently leases an additional 36 acres or about 14.4 hectares five miles away, bringing the total land available to 32 hectares, with 17.6 hectares used for grazing. He has managed to quadruple the size of his milk quota since he took over the farm.

Richard enjoys walking and supports GAA with Glanworth, their local club. He also enjoys supporting rugby. He is married to Nora, originally from Blarney and a part time book-keeper. They have four children – Claire (21) who is studying Adventure Tourism in Tralee I.T., Anne (19) studying Maths & Geography at UCC, Laura (18) who has just finished her Leaving Cert and Liam (15) who has just finished his Junior Cert. All of the family help out on the farm, with particular help nowadays from the youngest two, Laura and Liam.

The competition, which sets out to highlight and reward Irish dairy farming excellence, has been described as 'The Sam Maguire of Farming’. The results will be announced on Monday (21st), with the overall winning farmer set to receive a prize of €5,000 and the NDC and Kerrygold Quality Milk Awards perpetual trophy. We wish the Fitzgerald family the best of luck!

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