Eleanor and Richard Murphy

Richard and Eleanor Murphy are lifelong farmers from Glenmore County Kilkenny. Their family farm – Robins Glen Organic Farm – is a 74ha mixed organic farm. The main commercial enterprise are crops such as oats, barley, seed crops, beans, peas, sunflowers and more – these are used to produce a range of organic livestock meal, poultry feed and wild bird feed. They keep a small suckler herd on the farm and grow a small number of organic potatoes as well. The farm has been certified organic for 10 years now, and Richard and Eleanor have seen a dramatic improvement in the soil biology and general health of the land since. Fertility building cover crops are sown every year, ensuring the soil is never bare or exposed, and providing food for insects and birds. They run a combi-cropping system, they inoculate their seeds themselves, they make and use compost teas on the land and they under sow the spring crops with chicory and clover.

Soil health is essential to every decision made on the farm – "The key to unlocking the potential of the land is through management of the soil biology." Richard and Eleanor are of the belief that once you have healthy soil biodiversity, you will have healthy plants, healthy animals and healthy humans. They are participants in Talamh Beo’s Soil Biodiversity EIP – a learning-based project that is exploring how soil biology can be improved on Irish farms. Lots of wildlife is returning to the land, from hedgehogs to buzzards to owls, and the family are proud to run a productive farm that works with nature rather than against it.

Nomination:
Richard and Eleanor Murphy are lifelong farmers from Glenmore County Kilkenny. Their family farm – Robins Glen Organic Farm – is a 74ha mixed organic farm. The main commercial enterprise are crops such as oats, barley, seed crops, beans, peas, sunflowers and more – these are used to produce a range of organic livestock meal, poultry feed and wild bird feed. They keep a small suckler herd on the farm and grow a small number of organic potatoes as well. The farm has been certified organic for 10 years now, and Richard and Eleanor have seen a dramatic improvement in the soil biology and general health of the land since. Fertility building cover crops are sown every year, ensuring the soil is never bare or exposed, and providing food for insects and birds. They run a combi-cropping system, they inoculate their seeds themselves, they make and use compost teas on the land and they under sow the spring crops with chicory and clover.

Nomination:
‘We all like to see something before we believe it. However, the most powerful things in the world are often those things we cannot see. We cannot see the life / microbiology in the soil, yet we believe farming with a focus on this piece of nature is truly the way to sustainable farming. When you have healthy soil biodiversity, you have healthy plants, animals and humans.’ Eleanor & Richard Murphy. Richard and Eleanor Murphy farm Robin’s Glen in Glenmore, Co. Kilkenny. They foster soil health and bolster biodiversity on their family-run farm by organically growing a wide range of green cover, seed crops, seed potatoes, poultry and bird feed alongside a small suckler herd. Richard’s grandfather purchased the farm in 1916. ‘My grandparents were never found wanting when it came to putting their shoulder to the wheel, they instilled that ethic in me when I followed in their footsteps.’ Richard, like his father and grandfather, is an innovator and has worked at adapting and building machinery to meet the farm’s needs. In the early 80’s, they developed their “City Pack” brand of potatoes (with his brothers). In the late 90’s / early 2000, they developed a 12-Meter-wide Arable Topping machine, that greatly reduced the amount of chemicals needed to produce Sugar Beet. An earlier development of this machine won the national inventions award at the Tullamore Show. Since the late 70’s they were in continuous tillage, growing grain, potatoes and sugar beet. In the 90’s when it rained heavily on their cultivated fields, the runoff was red with their soil running out the gate and down the road. In 2009 Eleanor, Richard and their three boys put the farm into organic. Today, with the same heavy rainfall on the cultivated fields there is very little, if any, runoff and if there is, it is clear. Wildlife has increased dramatically from hedgehogs to owls. “We converted to organic farming because we wanted to farm in a more natural, sustainable way. This system of farming allows a rich diversity of microbes, insects and wildlife to continually propagate, as the different organic crops rotate around our farm. Grain crops must be restricted to a short rotation as pathogens develop in the soil that attack the cereal crop when they are grown more than two years in succession. “When we converted, we were concerned about disease and pest damage. In our previous system, we applied chemicals and insecticides to control diseases and pests. However, we found that they are not a problem in organic grain crops. This is mainly because the crop is allowed to grow naturally rather than being forced with fertilizers and chemicals.” “We are one of 16 farms taking part in Talamh Beo’s Soil Biodiversity EIP. It’s a learning-based project with a soil scientist helping us explore how to go about improving the soil biology on different farms around country. It’s an exciting time to be part of this study group, this really is farmers working together to learn, share and support each other, in how best to support and increase biology on our farms.”
Nominator: Bridget Murphy, Project Manager, Talamhbeo Soil EIP