Competing with ‘inferior imports’ has to change

From Rathmore, Stradbally, Co. Laois, Bobby and Denise Miller recently celebrated great success at the annual grain awards organised by Tirlán. Not only did they emerge victorious in the food-grade oats category, but they also sealed the overall-winner deal, too. After generations of grain production, the big win was very welcome, Bobby tells Matt. “I’ve won a category award previously, so I’m absolutely delighted to get the overall prize. The farm has been producing grain for generations so it’s nice to get recognition for it.”
Of his food-grade oats, he says: “It’s a premium product and takes a lot of careful management. It’s a team effort. I grow the crop but, to be fair, I get a great backup service with the Tirlán team. It’s a closed loop system in place for the crop of oats that I grow, so a lot of management involved. The biggest thing about growing any crop is timing. That’s the part you can play as a grower. It’s important to get things done in a timely manner when the crop needs something, and you’ve got to be ready to do the work.”

Crop rotation

Bobby grows a range of crops: “I’ve winter barley, oilseed rape and spring malting barley as well. Those are my four crops and I do a five-year rotation. I double-up on the spring barley, and I have cover crops. I import organic manures to help with soil fertility. In fairness to Tirlán they have put a lot of resources into marketing and developing new markets for premium products like the food-grade oats. Getting it into premium brands in the US is a great example of that marketing success. It’s a market that they have been developing over the last decade and we’d love to see it grow even further.
“I actually love growing oats, it’s one of the simpler crops to grow when you get to know it. It’s one of the least expensive crops to grow, so there’s that benefit to it as well. Food grade is where the extra value is at.”

Getting a return on commitment

But, Bobby says, things will have to change for tillage farmers. He explains: “Change is needed if they are to stay committed to what they’re doing: producing quality, traceable grain. Financial reward has to be there at the end of the day and that’s unfortunately lacking at present. When you hear about efforts to increase value and premium markets, you hope that things will improve. A lot of the brews and distillations are marketed as Irish products, and there’s still room for more Irish grain to be used instead of the foreign substitutes.”
He says the Bord Bia situation has brought not just beef into the spotlight, but it has raised questions, generally, about the food production and origin. “It’s brought the likes of how the food chain works in Ireland and worldwide into the spotlight and we have to put our best foot forward as an agricultural sector. Definitely, Irish grain needs to get more recognition in the whole Irish food production sector.”

Low carbon grain

Bobby discussed potential competitive ways to improve Irish grain margins: “We have what customers want. We have fully traceable, low-carbon-footprint grains and the fact that we’re competing directly with imports with inferior standards has to change. Even at larger scale, on average, Irish grain farming won’t cut the mustard over the coming decades without differentiating our product from competitors. We’re going to have to develop niche sectors with premium products; that’s where there’ll be a return. That’s where a lot of our focus needs to be in future. We need to find those niche markets. They are there; we just have to make more solid efforts to secure them. Currently, we have very few bodies doing that on behalf of the tillage sector. There’s definitely not enough being done in that regard.”