FARM LIKE A HERO EXPERIENCE: Michael Walsh, IR

Okay.

Welcome to a new episode of Farm Like a Hero, folks. I'm Richard Perkins. Today I'm here with Michael Walsh of Broadfield Farm in Wexford, Ireland. A 27 hectare family farm. And Michael's been really taken on a portion of that since 2016. The farm is originally built around a beef suckler enterprise, but he's bored along pastured eggmobile, pastured boiler enterprise, as well as an on farm poultry slaughter facility with additional co Christmas turkey batches. So super excited to hear about that. Michael, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us today.

No problem. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thank you. It's great to have you. And I'm really curious then about the backstory. You grew up on that farm.

Yeah, yeah. So I've been here. I'm 30. What, I'm 31 now. So I've been here all my life. Yeah, so I grew up here. We had, as I said, we're based around a beef zucker herd here. I guess we got into them maybe 20 odd years ago. Before that, on the farm there was. My father actually milked cows here before that. And when he was starting out he actually had his own dairy processing facility. So he sold his own milk and then that kind of had some disease breakdowns early on. So we got into the sucklers then and that's what's been mainly on the farm for the last, I say 20 years or so. And we've then, as I said, yeah, I moved into the. In 2016. I kind of started up this enterprise, you know, after seeing, getting interested in local food and you know, it was always kind of something we had in our mind years was to hey, why couldn't we sell our own beef? You know. And that's been in our mind for like I'd say 15 years going, why don't we sell our own beef? It's just strange that we have to pay a middleman or several middlemen, you know, the line of the money. So that's always been in our mind but never really done anything about it. More talked about and I suppose I started getting interested and found information from you from like Joel Salatin, the same guys everyone mentions really like. And I just started to see in them and I reckon that you know, broilers, eggs, you know, market gardening, all these small things were great ways to stepping stone into possibly, you know, jumping further down the meat processing route. So it was a, it was an interesting way just to get started, I think. And you know, as you say, it can be quite a low cost Enterprise to jump into as well. Yeah, as I said I back to. I've been here all my life. I obviously went to college for four years. I done study agriculture, done four years. I got a degree in land management or something. So that was like for four years in Ireland here after school and I kind of had a few jobs then after that like. So I, when I left that I worked on, actually worked on a fruit farm near here growing strawberries. I worked in that for a summer and that was like the toughest work I've ever done in my whole life. It was just outrageous. It was just so, so tough. It was just you're working in poly tunnel or in polylod, like tunnels in glass houses out in the field. It was just, it was such long days, hard work. It made me appreciate why what you would have after it like. But yeah, that was a, that was an interesting introduction into the work. Working life.

Did you know you were going to come back to the family farm? Was that always on the cards?

Yeah, I always wanted to like in Ireland and I guess it's, it's probably similar everywhere. Like I was just listening to one of the interviews you'd done last week with some. One of the guys who was selling beef and his. I laughed because he said, he was just saying, I think it was maybe Belgium he was in or something and he was saying yeah, and he was saying there's no money in commercial beef. And I was like, it's the same everywhere really. You know, there's no. Essentially there's not a massive amount of money in commercial beef in Ireland either. And on a 27 hectare small farm, essentially a small farm, there's not enough living for my father and myself. So I was always wanted to come back, but I always knew I had to do something outside the box. You know, I couldn't just hope that my father would retire and I would just sit into a nice comfy, you know, business that's already established. That was never, I always realized that was never there.

Okay, so what's the like who's on the farm then in your family?

Yeah, so it's just my father works the cattle, he does all the beef side of things. Obviously I help him out, you know, and I do work with him, but you know, that's his. I don't essentially don't get anything from that. I don't draw any wage or anything out of that. So I my entire living off what I'm doing.

And then what's his take on you coming and starting up like he's obviously supporting it, letting you put these other enterprises in. Does he. Is he to build a future in farming?

Very much so, yeah. He's completely behind it because I suppose in a sense it was his idea like 10, 15 years ago about selling our own beef. And he can see that this is building towards something like that, you know, direct marketing. And he's, you know, very much behind that. And essentially it doesn't, like if I was coming in and running horses or something like that, that was going to eat the grass that he needed, there would be a different story, you know, but essentially everything I have, you know, complements. Complements everything really. And it doesn't, doesn't hinder his, the process with him. Again, he's very open to it anyway, there's no issue that way, so it's fine. Like, there's no. And he's very helpful as well. Like, you know, he works with me. You know, I need help with something, he'll help me. If he needs help with something, I'll help him. You know, it works but ways and that, like, so it's, it's useful. And obviously the farm has tractors, infrastructure, trailers there that I, you know, use as well, which is massively important.

I want to, I want to dive into the enterprises. But I'm curious on this, the personal end of this too. It's like, do you, have you folks had this kind of succession conversations? Like, do you have a plan for further down the line? Is it something you begin discussing early on or is it conversations that haven't happened yet?

Yeah, yes and no. Like, you know, I am the only, essentially, I'm the only one, the family interested in farming. I have six sisters and none of them have any interest in farming. So, you know, I'm the only one here now essentially living here or living close by anyway. So, yeah, like, I know it's mine for the future in terms of everything else. It's when my father will retire or anything like that. I don't know. It's, it's, you know, and I like it by all means. It's, it's his, it's his life, it's his world. I don't mind how, you know, I wouldn't like someone to push me out and force me to do something I don't do. So by all means, I'm happy for him to work away and make his living off it and do as he does. There's no problem. You know, essentially, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's not gonna be forever. It's fine. Like again, it's probably something we need to talk about more, but essentially I do know, yeah, it'll, I will be, you know, whenever he hangs up his boots, whatever way you want to put it, it will be my, I will be, you know, full time for the whole thing. But, you know, as I say, I don't mind if he wants to farm till he's 90, 100, so be it. That's fine, let him know it, you know, I don't mind that. As I said, I hopefully I'll be that age someday and hopefully someone won't be kicking me out the door, you know, if I don't want to go or I do want to go, whatever it be, you know, so it's appreciating someone else's, someone else's life as well, you know.

Yeah.