Ballinasloe to host Teagasc National Beef Conference

The Teagasc National Beef Conference will take place on Tuesday December 13 in The Shearwater Hotel in Ballinasloe,

Announcing details of this year’s conference, Teagasc Head of Drystock, Pearse Kelly, commented: “In the past we have focused on providing the latest research and best advice for beef farmers and this year is no different.

“It has been a difficult year for beef farmers in relation to both rising input costs and beef price. However there are ongoing concerns around sustained high input prices in 2023,” he said.

“This year, we are focusing on increasing sustainability on beef farms in the longer term. We will also be focusing on the challenges facing farmers in the coming year particularly with rising input costs. We hope that the conference will offer an opportunity for constructive discussion of the issues.”

The keynote address will be delivered by the Teagasc Director Professor Frank O’Mara.

The conference will be split in two sessions on the night. The first session will start at 6pm and is titled ‘Key enablers to improving sustainability on beef farms’.

Dr Paul Crosson, Beef Enterprise Leader, Teagasc Grange, will assess the potential to improve technical performance and profitability for beef cattle production.

This will be followed by Dr Natascha Meunier, working with Animal Health Ireland and Programme Manager for Beef Health Check, who will outline how to improve animal health to increase liveweight performance.

Dr Colin Byrne, Beef Researcher, Teagasc Grange, will discuss reducing the age at first calving for suckler cows which is a key profit driver.

Roscommon Future Beef farmer Shane Keaveny, calves his heifers at 24 months, and will describe how he achieves target weight for age and gets his heifers in calf to calve at 24 months.

Shane operates a suckler beef system comprising with the male calves are finished as under 16-month bull beef

‘Has red clover a role in your beef production system?’ will be discussed in detail by beef researchers from Teagasc Grange, Dr Nicky Byrne and Peter Doyle. One farmer who has started on this journey this year is Martin Connolly, a farmer from Roscommon.

Martin will be part of a panel discussion and will describe how he has gone about incorporating red cover on his farm and his experience to date.

The second session is titled ‘Delivering sustainability at farm level’. There will be a panel discussion on the current, future and policy surrounding sustainability at farm level. A variety of contributors will share their expertise and experience including Teagasc researchers Dr Sinead Waters and Dr Dominika Krol, Pearse Kelly, Teagasc Head of Drystock, and other industry experts. The panel will be chaired by Matt O’Keeffe, presenter and producer of a farmshow on KCLR (Kilkenny/Carlow Local Radio).

The Teagasc Beef Conference is free to attend and all are welcome.