MICHAEL SEYMOUR'S SHEEPWALK ORGANIC FARM

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MICHAEL SEYMOUR'S SHEEPWALK ORGANIC FARM

I caught up with Michael Seymour of Sheepwalk organic farm in Tipperary at the Totally Tipperary food festival in Cloughjordan in late June.

The 125 acres farm is semi-urban: the frontage of the house faces the Tipperary town of Borrisokane, while the back faces his fields.

(photo by Chocolate Here's Gillian O'Leary )

“Half the farm is good lowland, the rest is callows.” Much farmland along the Shannon, or along its tributaries, floods at certain times of the year.

“Callows are only suitable for summer grazing, and I can't cut any silage there. This limits the carrying capacity of the land, but it does mean the meat that comes off that land is very natural.”

Callows have never been intensively farmed, due to the natural restrictions the flooding causes.

Seymour stocks 20 cows, and 18 calves as followers. The bull is Angus, and most of the stock at this stage is at least ¾ Angus.

Along with the cows, he stocks 80 Texel cross ewes and 115 lambs. “They have good muscle, but are still lean, with less fat” he tells me. “They suit organic too, as they are more resistant to stomach worms.” The lamb at the Asado, or BBQ in the evening of the Totally Tipperary event, he points out “was never dosed”.

The grazing system for farmers carrying organic sheep and cattle is called the clean grazing system. Cattle and sheep are rotated to break stomach worms' life cycle. Other barriers, such as tillage, can also be added into the rotation to really clean the fields.

While this is a necessity with organic, as farmers cannot routinely dose, necessity becomes a virtue for consumers who want meat that hasn't been treated.

Each June, Seymour starts to take lambs to the butcher. The lambs are killed from 4-5 months, with last year's lamb sold until mid June each year. He reckons organic lambs need to reach at least 5 months for flavour development, especially as they grow at a slower, more natural pace.

Regulars at either Nenagh or Ennis farmers' markets will be familiar with the organic meat of Michael Seymour.

While Borrisokane is just 20 minutes from Nenagh it is a good 90 minutes from Ennis. Indeed Ennis farmers' market starts especially early, being up and running by 8AM to catch people on route to work, so its milkman-like hours for the Friday market in Ennis.

In general, sales are slower now for many traders at farmers' markets. According to Michael “people don't have as much money anymore, they have lost jobs, they are watching what they are spending. There are more fluctuations than in the past, there are good and bad days. Also, there are not as many new people coming, its regulars mostly these days”.

The two markets are quite different: “Ennis now has 20 stalls, though there is a lot of duplication of product. Nenagh is smaller, but there is no duplication, and probably a little better footfall”.

Suprizingly, considering the relative sizes of the two markets, Nenagh has been where he has sold more of his meat until this year. Now however, the two are more evenly matched.

There are various preconceptions all farmers market traders have to deal with, some specific to their product, some generic.

Price is one. Despite the relative good value of organic red meat at farmers' markets, consumers imagine it will be exceptionally expensive.

“People presume that one of my steaks will be a tenner: when they hear that its just 6 or 7 euros, they might be inclined to buy two.”

To counter the negative price preconception, Seymour has recently started making his pricing displays far more visible.

If potential customers will not come over to the stall because they think the products will be expensive, you have to make it clear, literally, that it is not.

“When I put the price of the lamb burgers on the chalk board, 4 lamb burgers for E6, I started to sell out sold out. I don't think its the fact that its organic, I think its more that the price was visible”.

Here are another feature on Totally Tipperary Sheila Keily

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