With the end of another year approaching, ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison team leader Amie Coonan has outlined some of the additional initiatives the Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison team have been involved in this year.
The Advantage Beef Programme is a farmer sustainability initiative exclusive to beef farmers supplying cattle to ABP. Participating farmers get a 20c/kg Sustainability Bonus for committing to actions to improve sustainability on their farms.
The farm liaison team staff are there to assist farmers with implementing these sustainability measures on their farms.
As well as this, there are a number of additional events and initiatives run by the farm liaison team and included below is just a sample of these.
Earlier in the year, ABP facilitated a number of factory tours at its sites across Ireland where farmers were given the opportunity to see the full production process from the lairage right through to the packing area.
At these site visits, ABP collaborated with Teagasc to offer farmers AgNav training in the afternoon. “The purpose of this training was to highlight the importance of each farmer doing their bit to increase on farm sustainability,” Coonan explained.
In 2023, ABP sponsored the farm safety award at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition (BTYSE) and in 2024, the processor sponsored the ABP Sustainable Farming Practices Award, Students from Ballymahon, Co. Longford won the award this year with a project examining cow collars.
Beef farmer Aoibhin Coady and advantage team member Amie Coonan linked with AgriAware for its ‘Farming Through the Seasons’ initiative. This involves hosting virtual farm visits where school children can see what is happing on the farm from the classroom and ask any questions directly to the farmer.
In February of this year, the beef processor’s Advantage Beef Programme beef farmers teamed up with Aurivo milk suppliers in a mutual effort to improve calf quality.
Over 300 calves were traded through the initiative between dairy and beef farmers with a hope to increase this in the coming years.
As well as this initiative, a further 2,200 calves were linked from dairy farmers to ABP suppliers in 2024.
During the 2023 breeding season, ABP supplied 2,200 AI straws to dairy farmers across the country in an effort to great a supply of higher genetic merit beef calves for their Advantage beef farmers.
“Creating this link ensures a market for calves for the dairy farmer and ensures a supply of quality calves for the beef farmer,” Coonan explained.
In July this year, ABP hosted a farm walk on the farm of Joe Quinn from Moydow, Co. Longford which was well attended. Reseeding, calf nutrition and genetics were some of the main topics discussed at the event.
In March, ABP launched its Monitor Farm series where monthly updates from these monitor farms are published on Agriland .
These monitor farms are based on a variation of different land types and run different farming systems.
In October this year, ABP launched a new regenerative farming project in collaboration with Sysco. The five-year collaborative sustainable farming programme aims to pioneer regenerative farming practices and showcase the findings with the wider agricultural industry.
Also in October, the ABP Demo Farm won a sustainable business impact award at the 2024 Chambers Ireland awards.
The farm was announced as the winner of the Environment and Biodiversity Award for a Large Indigenous Company at the 2024 Sustainable Business Impact Award.