Ireland's Biggest Farmer Owns No Land

19 February, 2003

Owning land is not necessary for success in farming, according to one of Ireland's most progressive farmers.

Jim McCarthy, from Castledermot, Co.Kildare, owns just three acres of land but has become one of the largest tillage farmers in the country. Since 1992, he has built his tillage operation to 2,000 acres, all rented from 19 different farmers.

He also bales 15,000 tonnes of straw for the mushroom industry as well as running a grain drying and fertiliser spreading business.

Born in Cork city, Jim McCarthy attended the Teagasc College in Clonakilty and went on to become a qualified farm manager. He is now one of the biggest employers in the country of Teagasc trainees.

"I am convinced if someone wants to farm and has the burning ambition to do so, they will be successful. There is an ageing farming community and a lot of good land available for energetic and skilled young people", Jim McCarthy told the Teagasc National Education Conference.

He was critical of the constant "weeping and wailing about how awful things are in farming".

"Sadly, our farming organisations have done more than anyone else to discourage our young people from going into farming. They lack the honesty to tell farmers that the agriculture of the future will be a lot different from the past."

"To survive in the global market of the future, we must be the lowest cost producers and this will not be achieved on a 35,000 gallons milk quota, 40 suckler cows or 150 acres of tillage. Scale must be dramatically increased," he said.

"Farming has worked itself into an incredible sweat over the new Fischler proposals. Since I came into farming, there has been some new crisis which was going to devastate the industry. But farming is very resilient and it always seems to survive".

"Remember the Mac Sharry proposals in the early 1990's. They were also supposed to devastate farming but, for me, the first five years after the reforms turned out to be the glory period", he added.

The full conference proceedings can be found in National Conference in Agricultural Education