As farming enters its busiest six-month period from April to September, a new TG4 series Contractors will look at the fascinating stories of seven contractors and their families.
One of the farmers to feature in the documentary series is Peadar Seoighe from Corr na Móna in Galway, who has been in the contracting business for around six years.
From lime spreading to topping and spraying rushes, Peadar has built an agri-contracting business based upon the size of enterprise in the hills of Corr na Móna along with his competent sheep dog called Lindsey, who helps him get the job done!
The seven-part series explores the working lives and personal narratives of seven families, providing a unique practical and personal insight into contemporary life in rural Ireland.
The series highlights their professional challenges, the high and lows of their daily routine and their hopes and dreams, presenting a no-holds barred portrait of 7 extraordinary crews for hire – all members of an agricultural sub-economy without which farming would not be possible.
For the 137,000 families whose livelihoods depend on farming, it is a full-on, full-time job.
But few farmers have the time, the manpower or the expensive specialist plant required to do it, so they call on the services of 1,800 agricultural contractors from across the country.
Every year and in all weathers, these hardworking journeymen and women arrive with 20,000 tractors and harvesters, €150 million worth of agricultural machinery and 10,000 full and part-time operators.
In a single season, their crews will harvest five million bales of silage, spread 10 billion litres of slurry and handle a mammoth nationwide programme of hedge-cutting, reseeding, crop spraying, fencing, ploughing and drainage maintenance.
Watch Contractors on TG4 on Thursday 24 February at 9.30pm.
