From credit cards to robot cow feeders`
Changing money at point of sale was taken up by Hertz, Ryanair and the Marriott Hotel group, amongst others, and it’s still his main business today.
But he has a second, less likely business stream — cattle farming. And it’s not the kind of lord-of-the-manor, pedigree stock breeding kind of farming which many business magnates indulge in; it is mainstream drystock farming — but with a difference.
Mention Frank Murphy to cattle men, and the likely response is ‘the robot man’.
Last weekend, when Murphy played host to curious farmers visiting his system in Banteer, many were looking forward to watching his Lely robot feeding the cattle.
He scoffs at my question as to whether this is a hobby. “I’m a commercial farmer, I don’t do any hobbies that cost you money,” he said.
“This is a business. My father was farm manager of Dunbrody House, and I grew up on a farm.”
My preconceptions of intensive, American-style feed lot beef production on contract for the big processors were also wrong — very wrong.
He’s doing the opposite — contracting directly to butch-ers and restaurants, cutting out the middle-man, making him less vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather and the tightly-controlled Irish beef processing market.
The reason I spoke to him in the first place is that he’s been buying land locally, most recently 32 acres in Banteer, and I’d heard that he has paid up to €12,500 per acre.
When I asked him about the prices paid he said, not without a sense of humour: “Well, some did very well out of me, but I paid less in another one.”
Will he keep expanding? “The price has to be right, but I’ve filled in with land renting and contracting in the feed crop by the tonne, that deal is done at the start of the year,” says Mr Murphy. He developed his wife’s family farm in Banteer because he wanted to try a different approach to cattle rearing.
Halfway through, he discovered the Lely robotic system, and changed the sheds round to suit.
It’s the first of its kind in Ireland. The robot he uses will feed up to 550 cattle, he says, but right now, his maximum capacity is 330.
The robot will do 20 different diets — from sucklers to calves to finishers and more. It could also be used for a dairy herd.
The robot checks the level of feed in each cattle pen every hour, and measures and pushes the fodder in, keeping the cattle happy, says Mr Murphy. “The most contented animals you can get,” he explains.
The fodder and each specific dietary mix is made in the ‘kitchen’ by the robot, selecting silage or beet or maize or other forage or concentrate from the various feed bins.
It’s mixed up to a pre-programmed level, and then off the robot goes, to each group, every hour, keeping the cattle happy and nutritionally catered for.
It’s all programmable from an iPad or iPhone.
This Dutch robotic system costs around€140,000, but will save on man hours, diesel, and major investment items like tractors and loaders, says Mr Murphy.
He’s using a mix of animals for his various customers, from Hereford to Angus to Simmentals, Charolais and Aubrac breeds, and says he can nutritionally tailor the feeding not only to create special quality, marbled beef, but also to provide consistency to his customer base.
