Teagasc has appointed Gordon Peppard as the new Farm Business Structures Specialist. He takes over from Thomas Curran who moved to manage the Teagasc West Cork advisory region.
As Farm Business Structures Specialist with Teagasc, Gordon Peppard will be assisting farmers and advisors in the setting up of ‘Collaborative Farming Arrangements’ such as farm partnerships, share farming arrangements and contract rearing of dairy heifers.
Originating from a mixed farming background in County Wexford, Gordon Peppard graduated with a Bachelor of Agriculture Science Degree from UCD and completed a post-graduate Diploma in Education.
Gordon started his Teagasc career based in the Clonmel office, Co Tipperary, where he worked for 14 years, originally as a REPS advisor and later as a beef advisor delivering environmental and technical advice to a large number of clients. In 2015 Gordon was appointed Programme Manager for the first Teagasc Green Acres Calf to Beef programme, where he worked very intensely with 10 monitor farms for three years to improve grassland management, animal husbandry and overall farm profitability. In conjunction with the programme industry stakeholder partners, Gordon disseminated the results of the programme to the wider agricultural audience.
Most recently Gordon was working in County Kilkenny as a Teagasc Business and Technology Dairy Advisor. In this role he managed a large client base of progressive dairy farmers, facilitating discussion groups in the West of the county.
Congratulating Gordon on his appointment, Fintan Phelan, Head of the Teagasc Farm Management and Rural Development Department, said:
“Gordon has over 18 years’ experience in Teagasc working with farmers over a broad range of enterprises. This experience will be paramount in the promotion of Collaborative Farming Arrangements within Irish Agriculture.”
Collaborative farming is two or more farmers working together in a formal arrangement for the mutual benefit of all those involved in the arrangement. Gordon explained;
“The main benefits of a collaborative arrangement is that it can offer farmers increased returns through the ability to achieve scale at a lower capital cost; the reduction of costs which are duplicated between farmers; and risk sharing. Joint farming ventures can also help to address the social challenge of the ‘one man farm’ model making farming a more attractive occupation. They also open the possibility of sharing best farming and business management practice.”
https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/farm-management/collaborative-farming/
