I farm: “A total of 43ha. Just under half of that would be commonage ground. I’m organic, with 20 sheep and 40 Dexter cattle. They’re made up of 10 breeding cows, 10 one-year-olds, 10 two-year-olds and 10 calves. I follow them through to beef.

Land and sea: “The farm is unique in the sense that it runs from the sea to half way up the mountain. It’s a narrow strip of land about 200m wide, but long. So you have a lot of different habitats up and down the length and breadth of that.”

The outfarm: “I have an outfarm on the bottom of the Conor Pass, beside the new national park. I’m also a Farming for Nature ambassador.”

Conservation grazing: “In the winter the cattle go down to the sand dunes to graze the longer grasses. In the spring those grasses would be well eaten down. It allows the herbs and more delicate plants to grow up. That in turn allows that whole ecosystem down there to thrive. Spring and autumn, the cattle are in the lowlands. They go to the mountain around this time of year for the summer.”

Agrotourism: “Being in a tourist area, we had a bed and breakfast years ago. We opened up an Airbnb unit there last year. I often do farm tours as part of that, people ask me to show them the farm. It’s not only a business opportunity, but it’s a great way of engaging people, even kids, teaching them where their food comes from.”

Bokashi: “We built a shed quite close to the house, it’s also not that far from the Airbnb. We use a fermentation method to reduce the smell from the farmyard manure (FYM), an oriental Japanese way called bokashi. It’s mainly the use of lactobacillus and other beneficial bacteria to inoculate the FYM with beneficial bacteria. They colonise the straw and the dung; they bind the ammonia into the straw which keeps the smell away.”

Quotable quote: “When I started farming I could see that the land type we have, it’s pretty marginal land for the most part. There was no point in trying to go and do something with it that wasn’t really suitable. We’re trying to work with the farm we have rather than trying to change it into something that it’s not.”