In this episode Max speaks with Paul Billings, MD of Germinal UK & Ireland and Patrick Carroll, a dairy farmer from Limerick about reducing the dependence of grassland farming on nitrogen fertilisers.
Germinal is currently carrying out a research project with two aims.
- To reduce or even eliminate the need for chemical nitrogen application to grasslands
- To improve the efficiency by which animals convert protein into meat and milk.
This will ultimately benefit the environment and farmers by:
- Reducing greenhouse gases.
- Maintaining food production.
- Decreasing the cost of food production.
- Increasing farm income.
10 partners are setting up demo. farms across the Ireland and the UK to look at cleaner alternatives to nitrogen fertilisers such as ways to improve the relationship between white clover and the bacteria, rhizobia.
The two organisms work together to fix free and clean nitrogen into the soil.
You can visit the Germinal website to learn more about how clover is helping in the move away from nitrogen fertilisers. www.germinal.ie
