Emma and her family farm in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, milking 100 pedigree Holsteins and selling raw milk from the farmgate. They also run 300 North Country Mules. Emma volunteers with the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution
In the first of an exclusive 12-month blog for Farmers Guardian, the new cohort of youngsters on the McDonald's Progressive Young Farmer programme talk about their hopes for the future and the impact they can make. First up is Emma Cooney, a young dairy farmer from Ireland
There is a narrative that family farms are fading and that the next generation is not interested. But, I simply do not recognise it.
Dan Hawes grew up on an arable farm in Suffolk and now produces strawberry and raspberry plants for the UK fruit market with Blaise Plants, sister company to Hugh Lowe Farms, Kent. The business grows outside, under tunnels and in glasshouses and produces more than four million plants a year. The arable side includes environmental schemes, with a mix of wheat, oilseed rape, beans and barley crops