Meet our new Farmer Focus writer: Matthew Brownlee

We asked our new writers to answer a few quick-fire questions to give you a taster of what they’ll be talking about before they put pen to paper.

Name and location.

Matthew Brownlee, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

What type of farm do you run?

I run a mixed farm alongside my father. We are currently farming close to 121ha of land – a mixture of owned and rented. On our farm we have 80 suckler cows, a 100-day beef finishing enterprise, where store cattle are purchased locally; we also grow and finish reared dairy-bred calves. About 700 stock are slaughtered annually and we supply Dunbia.

See also: Read Matthew’s first Farmer Focus article here

Describe yourself in four words.

Determined, ambitious, enthusiastic and friendly.

What hobbies do you have off the farm?

I love sport. I play cricket for the local team in my area and am a keen supporter of rugby and football. I also enjoy socialising with my friends.

If you could change one thing about the agricultural industry what would it be and why?

I would scrap farm subsidies. I think these help keep afloat the inefficient farmer. I also believe they are restrictive to a young person beginning their career in farming, as its very difficult to compete with someone who has a large single farm payment if you have none or only a small payment achieved through the National Reserve.

Tell us about the funniest moment you have had on the farm.

Although it didn’t seem funny at the time, watching our 750kg Stabiliser breeding bull elegantly perform the breaststroke in an attempt to get up the river to the neighbour’s heifers would be up there.

Name one gadget you couldn’t be without and tell us why.

My mobile – it allows me to stay in touch with friends and also enables me to keep up to date with the sports scores while on the farm.

If you could farm in any other country where would it be and why?

New Zealand: better weather, lots of opportunities for young people and land availability.

What are your aspirations for the future?

In the future I would like to continue to grow our farm business and improve our output and profitability per hectare. I would also like our business to become more efficient and to be better managers of grassland and improve the amount of daily liveweight gain achieved from grass.