Macra na Feirme national conference: Measures for young farmers to reach their full potential

Over the October bank holiday weekend thousands of members from all across the country flocked to Limerick for the biggest event on the Macra na Feirme calendar, the national conference or ‘rally’ as it’s affectionately known. It was an action-packed weekend featured a number of competition national finals and our annual agricultural conference “reaching your farming potential”.

As is tradition, we visited a number of excellent farms and industry facilities on Saturday morning which were organised by the Limerick Macra Rally Committee. We were delighted to welcome Minister of State for Food, Forestry and Horticulture Andrew Doyle who spoke fondly about his own time in Macra na Feirme.

The conference heard from Dermot O’Connor from Limerick who was the 2012 FBD Young Farmer of the Year and Munster AI Vet Doreen Corridan. Macra na Feirme Public Relations Officer Joe Coffey facilitated a discussion with John Concannon of JFC and Donnacha Ryan, Irish rugby international, who shared the key components of their success.