Four to five truckloads of Irish hay are being exported to England each week by well-known fodder trader John Fearon.
Last summer’s searing heatwave in England decimated hay crops across much of the midlands and southeast of the country.
Many English horse owners are now dependent on imported hay and haylage from Ireland, Scotland and France, as a result.
“I’m doing four to five loads a week from the south,” said Fearon, whose is based on the Louth-Armagh border.
“I’m getting most of the hay in Louth and Carlow, but we’re also buying from Kildare down to Cork,” he added.
As around 98% of the hay is going for horses, Fearon said he is only buying top quality meadow hay.
He is paying €30 per round bale in the south. He has also bought a few loads of hay in Northern Ireland for the English trade, and is moving hay from Scotland on an ongoing basis.
There is very little hay to be got in England from the midlands to the south, Fearon said. He is supplying hay to farms from Gloucestershire in the west of England, to Essex and Kent in the southeast.
Meanwhile, the straw trade remains very quiet, with very little bite in the market.
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