The Dixons began looking at organic farming, as an option in 2010. The high costs associated with conventional farming had become prohibitive. After careful consideration, the decision was made to take the organic option. In 2010, the farm entered conversion to organic production and full organic status was achieved in May 2012.
On the farm, there is a suckler enterprise of 19 spring calving suckler cows, 33 weanlings and 32 finishing cattle. All progeny are finished of red clover silage, with no concentrates fed in the finishing phase. According to Oliver, the grass red clover silage “that’s the meal, that’s the profit, you can only control what happens inside your farm gate”. The red clover silage is the driver of profitability on Oliver and Anna’s farm. If that crop was not grown, the farm would be dependent on direct payments to generate an income. Oliver established a red clover grass sward in 2013 and on a second field in 2019.
The holding is made up of two blocks of land, one home farm block of 26.54 hectares and 17.15 hectares in an out farm at Ballyglass, Claremorris with a grand total of 43.69 hectares of permanent pasture. Oliver practices a paddock system, for both suckler cows and the yearling and finishing stock. The paddock system has many benefits in grassland management. It gives farmers control over both the animals and the grassland, making sure animals graze out fields effectively, helping control weeds that can be an issue in an organic system. It also gives the farmer the flexibility to remove paddocks going “strong” and get them back in rotation quickly after taking bales.
The cows are Angus x Simmental types and are currently bred to a Simmental stock bull for two main reasons.
Firstly Oliver wants to increase the carcase weights of his finished stock and secondly Oliver wants to maintain a closed herd predominately and breed his own replacements from his own cows. Maiden heifers are mated to an Angus bull, with every effort being made to calve down at 24-26 months of age.
Oliver plans his sales of finished animals booking them in with John Brennan, an agent for Slaney meats, slaughtering his cattle in two lots; April and September. Average carcase weight for the bullocks was 351kg while average carcase weight for heifers was 318 kg carcase. The ages of all animals ranged between 24.6 months to 32.4 months with the majority R grades 4 + and 4 -. Five euro sixty cent was the base price for both lots of cattle.
The big difference between Oliver and many conventional finishers is that when he is paid for his stock, large amounts of the payment is not taken out to pay for feed and fertiliser, the two biggest variable costs on drystock farms.
