Ireland
September 21, 2016
A formal merger of grassland software packages, PastureBase Ireland and AgriNnet Grass, was announced today, Wednesday, 21 September at the National Ploughing Championships. The two have joined forces to offer one grassland package for 2017, PastureBase Ireland. Both systems will now come together and will add huge critical mass and expertise to grassland software use for Irish farmers.
Teagasc launched PastureBase Ireland as the National grassland database in 2013. Since then many farmers have been logged onto the system and are actively using the application. AgriNet, which is part of the Progressive Genetics Group launched its grass software at the same time and the package has been very popular with farmers both in Ireland and internationally. The joining of both packages will offer Irish farmers world leading grassland software to aid decision making on their farm. It will also mean that Irish grassland data will be stored in a National database for the benefit of Irish farmers.
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed TD joined management from Teagasc and Agrinet for the announcement.
Teagasc Director, Professor Gerry Boyle said: “Both systems offered web-based grassland technology so the merger will bring together all commercial farm grassland data in one system and will allow the knowledge base of both organisations work together to develop and improve the system. Ireland as a nation is well ahead of our international competitors in this area, and this merger will continue the focus on exploiting this advantage.”
The focus is now firmly on increasing Irish farmers’ competitive advantage by increasing grass utilisation. The Food Wise 2025 target is for grass utilisation to increase by 2 tonnes of Dry Matter per hectare on all Irish farms. The real advantage of grassland technology is that it can span ruminant enterprises dairy, beef and sheep. Teagasc have always acknowledged that the key grazing management principles are similar across all enterprises.
Teagasc Director Professor Gerry Boyle said: “This merger of PastureBase and AgriNet Grass is a strategic step forward for Irish farmers in grassland management. It will place Teagasc at the forefront of Smart Agriculture and is an important step forward for the organisation in this area. PastureBase Ireland will greatly aid the role out of the KT groups and will be used to in the completion of some of the grassland technologies such as the Teagasc spring rotation planner, grass wedge and autumn grass budget.”
Barry Lynch of Agrinet commented: “The AgriNet Grass system has been a great success for us, particularly in Ireland and the UK, but also in New Zealand, US, Chile, Australia and Holland. As we worked on AgriNet Grass data and software, we became acutely aware of the importance of grass data from an industry point of view, and the need to conduct more research and development on grass data for the benefit of farmers who own the data. We are delighted to be able to merge our expertise in grass software and grass software support with the world class grassland research being conducted in Teagasc Moorepark.”
Tom Kelly, chairman of Progressive Genetics commented that he was delighted with the merger of Agrinet and Pasturebase and it was great to see the partnership between the public and private sectors. Tom added “this can only be good for Irish farming in the long run and fits very well with the mission of Agrinet.”
Visit https://pasturebase.teagasc.ie/ or follow on twitter @pasturebase
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