29 January 2024

‘Best of’ to be recognised in Teagasc/FBD Environmental Sustainability Awards

Launched in early January, the Teagasc/FBD Environmental Sustainability Awards feature a prize fund of €30,000. In addition to an overall award winner, prizes will be awarded in up to nine categories.

This includes five enterprise awards for: dairy; breeding/suckler beef; non-breeding / finishing beef; sheep; and tillage. Furthermore, the awards feature a ‘best of’ category, which will be awarded to winners who are judged to be farming in an environmentally friendly manner, but have made an outstanding contribution to the environment in one of the four areas of: reducing gaseous emissions; improving water quality; enhancing biodiversity; or improving soil health and carbon.

In terms of the prize fund, the overall award winner will be chosen from one of the category winners. In total, the overall winner will receive a prize of €10,000 – €2,500 as a category winner and an additional €7,500 as the overall winner. Each other enterprise award winner will receive €2,500, while the ‘best of’ award winners will receive €2,500 for each of the above mentioned categories.

Dr Siobhan Kavanagh, Signpost Programme Communications and Engagement Specialist, spoke on this exciting development on a recent episode of the Teagasc Beef Edge podcast, adding: “Teagasc and FBD have come together to develop this awards programme. There is a prize fund of €30,000, so it is quite attractive.”

Explaining the reasoning behind the awards, she said: “What we really want to do is to promote sustainable farming, but also to give credit to farmers that are making a huge effort in this area and to demonstrate to their peers, to the industry, but also to the general public that they can see what farmers are doing to improve the sustainability on their farms. I think that’s hugely important to the industry to be able to give that credit because there’s an awful lot of very good work going on at the moment.”

On what the judges will be examining, Siobhan said: “The overall winner is somebody that can demonstrate good environmental sustainability in the areas of reducing greenhouse gases, improving water quality, biodiversity, and soil health.

“But, at the same time, being able to demonstrate that the farm is productive and the farm is profitable within the enterprise. For us, it’s about demonstrating environmental sustainability, while remaining productive and profitable.”

The awards will be presented in October of 2024. The overall sponsor of the awards is FBD Insurance. They are supported by ICBF, Bord Bia, and AgNav. For more information and to apply for the Teagasc/FBD Sustainability Awards, click here.

Photo caption: Pictured at the launch of the New Teagasc/FBD Environmental Sustainability Awards are from (l to r): Tom O’Dwyer, Teagasc; Professor Frank O’Mara, Teagasc Director; Siobhan Kavanagh, Teagasc; Michael Berkery, FBD; Mary Dunphy, FBD; and Pat Dillon, Director of Research, Teagasc.