Grandad's farm fire inspires young agri inventors

Kinsale Community School pupils from left, John Quinn, Jack Good, and David Forde, missing from the picture is Sean Dinneen, whose company DJS Engineering invented the Farm Equipment Holder, representing West Cork in the national student enterprise competition on May 9. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

A farm fire almost 25 years ago has inspired a new generation of young agri-entrepreneurs in Kinsale.

The four include David Forde, Jack Good, John Quinn, and Sean Dinneen. All just 16 years old, the lads started their business, DJS Engineering, as part of their transition year programme at Kinsale Community School but demand for their simple but effective idea has meant they have already needed to scale up production.

The group was mentored by teachers Ms Máire Fleming and Ms Caitriona Leahy as part of their enterprise class.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, David Forde explained: “We picked the “mini company” project for the programme. Coming from farming backgrounds, we all wanted to invent something associated with farming. We saw there was a gap in the market for a holder for farm equipment, especially when you are dehorning calves.

“From our experience on farms, we saw that the hot dehorner was often thrown into a trough. Sean’s grandfather’s shed caught fire back in 1999 because of a dehorner, and that was a major inspiration for us.

“It’s a very hot piece of equipment used to dehorn calves, and we couldn’t find anything invented to hold it. And that’s where we got the idea. If it makes contact with straw it can very easily catch fire.

“We came up with a couple of different designs ourselves at school and we made up the very first one with help from my uncle.” 

The boys had already studied engineering as part of their junior cert, so they had already learned some metalwork skills needed to make their idea a reality.

Of course, any budding entrepreneurs will know that the next step in any successful business is to conduct market research, so they took one of their early prototypes to the National Dairy Show at Millstreet.

“The farmers we spoke to thought it was a great idea and would be very much worth making,” Jack Good explained. “The only thing that we hadn’t developed on was the weight of it – we soon realised that it was a bit heavy to be carrying around.

“It was mainly for research, but we got a lot of interest from vets too, which we hadn’t initially expected. It widened out perspective.” Once the group knew they had consumer interest, they started making as many as they could, but the manufacturing process was long and needed streamlining.

John said: “They were taking about two hours to make, so we couldn’t really keep up with orders.” 

Kinsale community school pupils from left, John Quinn, Jack Good, and David Forde, with teachers Caitriona Leahy and Máire Fleming.  Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Initial marketing secured 20 orders, but they have been able to order 40 more as farm supply shops have now begun to stock the farm equipment holder, with the boys’ ultimate aim to get the product out to all the co-ops in West Cork.

“They were having to do it outside of school hours, in the evenings and weekends, as well as doing farming jobs and sports. They were very busy, but they were good at it and enjoying it,” Ms Fleming said, explaining that after winning the West Cork division of the Student Enterprise Programme, the next step was to outsource production to local company O’Neill’s Engineering.

They visited the company in Ballinadee twice and negotiated a deal for the firm to take on the manufacturing process.

The four want to continue working on the business and come up with other ideas.

“We would love to turn this business into a career,” David said. “We have a new invention in mind for the future, but we can’t say too much as we don’t want to give away all of our ideas.”

The product can be sold directly to farmers for €80 plus postage. However, they are also available through Country Farm Supplies as part of a bundle deal with syringes, stock spray and aluminium spray for €119.

But now, the Farm Equipment Holder's next stop is the national finals of the Student Enterprise Programme, Ireland’s largest student entrepreneurial programme. The competition will take place on May 9, with over 80 of Ireland’s brightest young entrepreneurial minds taking part, whittled down from the 26,000 or so who began their businesses in September.