Armagh / Down organic producers visit William Brown’s Focus Farm

A group of organic Beef and Sheep producers from counties Down and Armagh recently visited the Focus Farm of William Brown at Creamery Road, Coleraine.

A total of 132 ha (329 acres) are farmed, of which 60 acres are owned with the remainder leased in. A suckler herd comprising of 65 cows are kept in addition to 60 store cattle that are bought in each year. All stock are finished off the farm and are sold both to ABP Newry, and Dunbia. The farm is benchmarked each year and is currently in the top 25%.

The suckler herd is bred to Charolais, Limousin and Shorthorn Bulls.

William has also been running an organic turkey enterprise where the birds are marketed through O’Kanes. This enterprise has been well cut back recently and turkeys are now only produced for the Christmas market.

On tour around the Creamery road farm, the Group were highly impressed with the excellent Red Clover/Hybrid/Italian based silage swards. Indeed these were ready for cutting at the time of the visit. The latter were established by undersowing with wholecrop in 2010.

The Group also viewed a group of finishing heifers grazing an excellent perennial ryegrass/white clover sward. William explained that the White Clover had been ‘stitched’ in using an Einboch air seeder after a silage crop the previous year.

The beneficial effect of environmental schemes was very evident around the farm, with numerous gate pillars, traditional gates and well maintained hedges to the fore.

The Armagh/Down men thoroughly enjoyed their visit to what was a very impressive and well managed farm.