How resourcefulness wins the day for an exceptional tillage farmer

Joe Egan farms 250 acres on Inch Farm near Thurles, with a further 120 acres rented. Having taken over the reins from his father in 2016, he has made huge strides over the intervening years in maximising income from every square inch of his tillage farm. According to Joe, his overriding goal is to add value at every possible opportunity to his farm produce. "No part of the farm isn’t put to productive use – the price of land makes this absolutely essential.”

The story first appeared in our 2025 Irish Farm Report.

Discover more insights like this in our 2025 Irish Farm Report – Download Now!

Proof of Joe's commitment to maximising land use lies in the extensive crop profile on the farm, including oats, barley, wheat, beans, OSR, beet, maize and fodder crops. Joe regards it as a huge part of the farm’s defence against disease associated with repeated sowing of the same crops, but it also protects him against price fluctuations in any specific crop.

The even distribution of crops throughout the year also evens the workload, with Joe able to manage the load solely with some help from his 78-year-old father. Married to wife Helen, he has four children to provide for. Typical of his gift for planning and organisation, they’re aged four, six, eight and ten!

It’s not just the breadth of his crops that sets Joe apart. He has successfully negotiated with local farmers and sells directly to them when they’re short of feed. His winter and spring barley and fodder are also sold to stud farms in the area, continuing a sense of ‘circular economy’ that permeates everything Joe does.

He’s also looked to profit from produce that others regard as waste. He built an underground slurry tank designed specifically to import slurry from neighbouring livestock farmers, which saves dramatically on artificial fertiliser, while also enriching the soil.

And lest Joe finds himself with surplus fodder on his hands, he purchases store lambs each summer, which are finished over the winter using break crops and surplus feed produce. Apart from earning income at the market, they also help clean up pasture over the winter months.

Joe is adamant that he looks for market opportunities before sowing anything. If there isn’t a gap in the market, he simply isn’t interested and refuses to follow the herd in terms of crop selection or other farm activities.

Joe recognises that he’s lucky in that he doesn’t have to produce two farm incomes. His parents run the successful Inch House, formerly an award-winning restaurant and now available to upmarket holiday-makers for exclusive hire.

But despite this fortunate position, he’s completely adamant that his business model can be replicated by other farmers, “once they’re open to everything and closed to nothing”. He signs off by stressing that modern farmers should look to adapt before being forced to, and you can’t accuse him of not living up to his advice!

Share