Farming 214ac in Calverstown, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, Kim McCall says that farmers should strive to be more resilient, as the word sustainability “means nothing”.

McCall has been farming with biodiversity to the fore for the past 30 years and from 1 January 2023, he will be going fully organic.

"Resilient is the word that should be used by farmers. You can be sustainable at a very low rate or sustainable at a very high rate. I want to make my farm more resilient. Sustainable is a pretty rubbish word because it means nothing, whereas resilient actually means something,” he said.

Since taking over the farm from his dad in 1986, himself and his wife Mirielle have put in four ponds on the farm, sown upwards of 1,000 trees and shrubs every year and have completely cut out the use of fertiliser and herbicides.

Trees

Since the farm was bought by his dad in 1958, almost 60,000 trees have been sown on the farm.

Trees don't just improve this farm's biodiversity, they have also been used to divide up paddocks for a better grazing system. He has several paddocks now broken up into 8ac plots using trees and hedgerows.

The trees are also sown along stream margins and in the wood, which is 30ac in size.

By using a multitude of different trees, such as oak, beech, lime, walnut, sequoia, chestnut, poplar, willow and field maple, McCall says adds to "diversity and resilience for future unforeseen events".

Up to 20 different tree species are used in hedgerows dividing the paddocks.

These include wild roses, spindle, crab-apple, hawthorn, buckthorn, holly and hazel.

The Kildare farmer also has 60 pedigree Aubrac cows and was first to import the breed from France in 1996.

He sells the bulls out of these cows to local dairy farmers at around 14 months of age and keeps the majority of the heifers as replacements.

“My main market is selling to the dairy market; I suppose we are the Angus breeder’s competition. They’re lovely cattle with great conformation. I AI from this time of year onwards and then I run four stock bulls with the cows,” he said. He also runs a small flock of sheep.

Slurry

"I haven't spread fertiliser in 10 years. Slurry is now my main vector of nutrients on the land," he said.

McCall adds biochar into his slurry, which, he says, adds a stable store of nutrients to the land and increases the water-holding ability of pastures in hot summers.

The oregon kiln/flame cap kiln below excludes oxygen from the bottom of the kiln and so preserves the char.

Agroforestry

McCall isn’t in the agroforestry scheme, as he says he doesn’t want to be restricted in the types of trees he sows.

“I can plant whatever I like and be totally independent, I’m not restricted to being told to plant something to then find that a disease comes along. I plant a mixture of trees, so at the moment we’ve actually got completely diverse woodland," he said.

Schemes

McCall said that farmers should focus on entering as many schemes as possible, rather than trying to feed the world.

“We need to change our thinking as farmers. There are an awful amount of payments out there that we can avail of and there's no point in thinking that we are going to feed a world of 10 billion.

“I don’t think that’s our job. Our job is to feed our family first and then it’s the local community and then the wider community.

“You can increase your incomes, while also making your farms more biodiverse,” he said.

McCall said that he predated most of the schemes like REPS and GLAS.

"I suppose I'm environmentally ahead of the group. We are in about three EIPs, so we get a wee income from that.

"There's all sorts of things going on on the farm that wouldn't be going on on other farms, but, ultimately, Ireland needs more trees," he concluded.

The McCalls have also engaged with the National Biodiversity Data Centre for a number of years and regularly submit data from their farm, which recently has been made a limited company.