Patrick and Geraldine Shalvey’s dairy farm in Co Cavan is to host RTÉ’s Big Week on the Farm series, which will hit television screens at 7pm nightly on Monday, 3 April to Friday, 7 April.

Ella McSweeney and Áine Lawlor will present the show live each night from a purpose-built studio on the fields of the Shalvey’s 100-acre dairy farm.

Patrick and Geraldine’s three children, Enda (20), Colm (18) and Aoife (16), will feature on the programme, as they are the latest in a long line of Shalvey’s to farm the land. Enda is an Agricultural Science student in UCD.

Live action

With 64 dairy cows, the farm will be the backdrop to a busy week of calvings, milking, live studio demonstrations, discussion, dissections and hatchings.

Feeding into the live action from Cavan will be location presenters Darragh McCullough and Helen Carroll, who will report from 10 different farms across the country; two different farms every night.

They will report on the laying of snail caviar in Leinster, the birth of a baby buffalo calf in Cork, the arrival of 300 newborn goslings on a farm in Meath, farm-to-fork pork production in Donegal and a sheep dairy unit in Mayo, to name a few.

The series will examine the science and technology involved in farming, including UCD research into barley varieties, drone technology and sensors.

World renowned sheep shearer Ivan Scott set a Guinness World Record last year and the Big Week on the Farm is hoping to break three world records this year.

To find out more about the Shalvey family and Big Week on the Farm, don’t miss Aisling Hussey’s interview with Patrick Shalvey in this week’s Irish Farmers Journal.

Read more

Big Week on the Farm attempt to break tractor reversing record

Ratings success for Big Week on the Farm