Farmer wellbeing

Despite Silicon Dock in Dublin and MegaPharm in Cork, it is politically necessary to maintain that Ireland is an Agricultural Nation. Pharma accounts for [55%] five times as much export earnings compared to Farmer [9%]. There are 15 million mammals on Irish farms but only 130,000 [9%] are, like, farmers. As farmers are outnumbered by their livestock [soon enough to be deadstock on your plate], so there are thousands of salaries coat-tailing on their hard graft and long hours. So many advisors, creamery managers, feed suppliers, agri-bureaucrats, hauliers, auctioneers, researchers, slaughterers meat-packers. My pal Mick, a reluctant farmer and enthusiastic historian and yomper, rocked up to a Teagasc sponsored demonstration a few years ago.  There were two farmers present, Mick and a bloke in a trench wrastling with hanks of yellow land-drainage pipe. Observing from a safe distance in spotless green wellies were two dozen suits, scoring a day out of the office and a generous mileage claim.

The wider agri sector does provide useful services to workers at the silage clamp face [L]. IF the poor bloody farmers can win a half day between mucking out and applying a top-dressing of lime to the 9-acre. I'm not the farrrmer here, I'm just The Outdoor Man, The Beloved is the one who fills in the forms and has an accountant. This year, she signed up for a knowledge transfer KT scheme which paid for her to go on monthly jaunts round the county: learning stuff and sharing information. It was under this rubric that we hosted a visit to our traditional hay meadow in June. The Outdoor Man was allowed in the kitchen to bake a great big brack and a slab of flapjacks. 

The penultimate jaunt of the year was a  Farmer Wellbeing Day, at Carlow Mart sponsored by Healthy Ireland [Hi] and Carlow CoCo. A couple of cars-full left the valley in good time to be sure of parking and a trip to the jacks before things got going. Only one of The Beloved's passengers availed of both the free hair-cut and the free health-check. When I worked at the institute, I used to take the annual free health check done by the Strength & Conditioning students: my BMI went down and my BP held steady. The "Enjoy a delicious complimentary lunch" was a disappoint: cardboard cup of soup and ham&cheese sandwiches but the Merch was mighty . . .

• Merch
  
• grey Hi watch cap
• grey Hi baseball cap
•  HiViz  waistcoat
• a brace of snoods, if you believe in such things
  
• First Aid kit with enough sticking plasters to outlive their sell-by date
• a new A5  hard-cover notebook  to take over from my nearly full [Nov 2022 start] one
• a  Positive Mental Health  wrist-band
• pens and post-its I guess farrrrmers don't have as much use for them as scientists
  

So a win for me: all that kit and no requirement to stand around in the cold being advised by <synecdoche alert> suits spotless green wellies.