21 July 2026

Decades of change – Roy Kingston’s reflections

Recounting over four decades of experience, Teagasc ASSAP Advisor, Lane Giles speaks to Roy Kingston, retired farmer and current chair of the Better Farming for Water Oversight Committee in the Bandon-Ilen and Lee Catchments, to reflect on farming throughout the generations.

In 1919, Roy’s grandfather bought the farm at Laragh and moved from their home farm near Union Hall, Cork. Being a cattle dealer, the more central location near Bandon meant he could walk cattle to and from fairs as far apart as Macroom, Skibbereen, and Carrigaline.

Roy’s father Kenneth, who was the second youngest of seven, had his bags packed to go to Trinity College in 1944 when his father asked him to stay at home farming. This farm was then taken over in turn by Roy in 1982, which he later passed to his son Scott in 2023.

During this period, each generation took the reins up early. This led to the active farmer being younger and more open to different ways of doing things.

“Youth is the most valuable resource we have in the country,” explained Roy.

“What they lack in wisdom, they more than make up for in enthusiasm, vision and energy … we can add to this carefully and not say ‘I did it this way in my day’, instead asking what would you think about….”.

“Farming must be that the older person is comfortable and feels respected for his experience and the younger person can have the freedom to make their own choices and make a good return for their efforts,” Roy added.

Memories of the Bandon

One of Roy’s earliest and most precious memories was of the Bandon River shimmering about a hundred meters away from him with a salmon run. A lot has changed environmentally since then – both on land and out at sea where the salmon spend a lot of their life cycle.

Back then, every fisherman would have come home with salmon. Nowadays, they must be put their catch back in to help build the stocks.

Even though Roy doesn’t expect to see this abundance again, he was delighted to see sholes of 6-inch trout recently as well as dragon fly which is another good indicator of biodiversity.

“Nature has a huge capacity to recover… We can be proactive when it comes to nature and biodiversity, deciding on an informed course of action to have positive consequences in the natural environment,” he explains.

Changed farming practices

The farm has seen many changes over the years. Mixed farming changed to intensive winter finishing of cattle, together with specialised crop production – including a lot of sugar beet as a break crop, which was later followed by oilseed rape for biodiesel production when the beet factory closed in 2005.

The beef enterprise also changed to keeping similar cattle numbers all year round, together with a reduced acreage of sugar beet for cattle feed.

Vegetables including onions, French beans and carrots were also grown at field scale in recent decades. However, it was difficult to meet the supermarket specification consistently.

In the 1990s, the winter cereals were replaced by spring cereals to reduce soil erosion on the farms flood plains and increase profitability.

Practices like grazing on beet tops in-situ and outwintering large numbers of livestock ceased. Ploughing for reseeding has been replaced by disc harrowing, where farmyard manure didn’t need to be ploughed in.

More recently, since the closed period regulations were introduced, it was found that slurry spread during the growing season saved a lot of money on bought in fertiliser.

The decision to go dairy farming was made in 2016. This was mainly so that the farm could support two families going forward. The first-year milking in 2018 saw extremes of weather, including the Beast from the East in the spring followed a drought in the summer.

“It became apparent gradually through continuing education and a strong interest that care of the environment – particularly the soil and water quality – was becoming increasingly important,” Roy reflects.

The importance of continuous learning

Looking back with our current environmental awareness, the advice and practices of the past would be done somewhat differently today. It is also important to realise that in years to come, today’s advice and practices may be viewed and done somewhat differently too. This is why continuous learning is important that, through our best practice, we can pass our farms on to the next generation in a better and healthier status than when we started farming.

Over time, this awareness of the need for change has helped future proof the business. Nowadays, farm information is updated in real time on the mobile phone and Bord Bia audits are welcomed to make sure that cross compliance issues don’t arise on the farm.

Since changing to dairying, measures have been taken to benefit water quality on the farm. These include:

Fencing further out from watercourses and putting in more water troughs in the middle of fields, allowing vegetation to grow on the banks to soak up the excess nutrients that may run off the fields.
Using modern granular fertiliser spreaders and LESS slurry spreading equipment, together with carefully timed applications to match the expected grass growth as well as watching the weather forecast before applying, have become standard practice.
Catching silt from the grey water leaving the farmyard in two earthen bank sediment traps, as well as passing it through sedimentation tanks and a swale also helps clean the water leaving the farmyard.
Using protected urea together with careful nutrient management planning and grass measuring to help manage the balance of nutrient supplied to expected grass growth.
Sloping the farm roads to direct run off nutrients into the fields for uptake by grass instead of into drains and streams.
Understanding the capabilities of clover so we can trust it more to replace chemical nitrogen, especially during the Summer and Autumn.

From experience, Roy has learned not to be in a situation of “having to spread slurry when the tanks are nearly full and the weather isn’t suitable for spreading.” Going on to say: “Many farms need another month of slurry storage so that we are not pressurised into spreading in poor growing conditions, even if it’s within the open spreading period dates.”

The farm currently has 24% space for nature according to the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine, and Roy continues to plant 20 – 30 trees each year as he has done for many years. This together with 10 acres of an Oak planted forest, set amongst older mature trees in 2003, gives him a “feel-good factor” that money couldn’t buy.

They are delighted to be supplying Carbery, who he considers to be tops about sustainability, encouraging farmers to be as good as they can be while maximising profitability.

Roy also mentions four pillars of sustainability as being Nature, Economics, Society and personal wellbeing saying: “Carbery takes each one seriously and are actively ensuring their suppliers benefit from being serious about sustainability in the broadest sense of the word.”

Nowadays, Roy is at the stage of giving more back to the wider community in many ways, feeling honoured to Chair the Better Farming for Water Oversight Committee, saying “I had a great interest in the river and what it offered all my life. I’m more educated and make more informed choices now being more aware of the consequences of our actions in the natural environment.”