I farm: “120 spring-calving dairy cows and 120 followers alongside my parents Martin and Claire and siblings. Our neighbour Finbarr Scanlan also helps out. The farm is all owned, with 230ac in three blocks.”

Dairy: “The cows are mostly Friesian and British Friesian cross and we supply to North Cork Co-op. The milk goes mostly for powder and butter, but there’s a bit for liquid as well. We’re in the process of drying off cows at the moment, with the first of them done at the weekend. They’re on silage now until calving, with the first ones due in early February.”

Calves: “We use an Angus bull for the heifers and tidy up with both beef and dairy AI used on the cows. We rear all our own heifers and bar a few late calves, any beef is reared on to 1.5 years and sold as stores in Macroom Mart.The youngstock are all housed and on ration with good silage to keep them thriving. Fodder-wise, we tend to have enough bales but we’re lucky this year that we didn’t have to feed any over the summer because of the land type.”

ACRES: “We’re looking at ACRES and we’re planning what we could do. It’s an area of natural conservation here.”

Macra: “I’m the national chairperson of Macra. We got home from a trip to the European Parliament on Friday. Our national and county officers were out to see the impact our organisation can have and the work being done at EU level by our politicians. Commissioner Mairead McGuinness gave us her time and we heard from a number of agri MEPs. Agri-politics is something I’m very interested in and I really enjoy it.”

Women in agriculture: “Having more women in the sector is extremely important. We’re not represented as well as we should be and we need to make sure that our co-ops and farm organisations are conscious of the important role we have. If we want our voice to be heard, we have to go out and make it heard.”