By Joe McCann
A HOLYWOOD woman has won a prestigious EU innovation award for her work on sustainable water systems at the Co. Wexford farm she runs with her husband.
Cheryl Poole, who is originally from Holywood and attended Holywood Primary School and Sullivan Upper School, now lives in Gorey, Co. Wexford, with her husband, Alan. They run a 103-acre dairy farm situated on the River Bann, a tributary of the River Slaney.
Cheryl said the couple had not originally intended to farm after both of them graduated with PhDs—her husband in Conservation and Zoology, and Cheryl in Chemistry. However, after taking over the farm, which has been in Alan’s family since the beginning of the 18th century, the couple decided to use their expertise to help run a farm sustainably.
She explained, “I met Alan in college in Galway. Our farm has been in his family since 1707, so we’re about the 13th generation on the land. Alan’s brother was the one expected to farm, but when that didn’t work out, we had the opportunity to come home and farm it.
“We’re conservationists and environmentalists at heart, and we’d always thought we’d be able to buy a few acres sometime and have a few habitats and different things, but now we have a whole farm. At the time, there was dairy and a few other small enterprises, but we’ve gone solely to dairy, milking 72 cows.”
The couple’s innovative approach to farming has resulted in their stretch of the river being classified as ecologically pristine, earning a blue dot, the highest award for river cleanliness in Ireland.
Cheryl said, “Straight away, we were conscious of trying to make sure the river stayed as clean as possible. We wouldn’t have any livestock in it or any fertilizer anywhere near it and kept good margins between the land and river.
“We invested quite heavily in infrastructure around the farm because the biggest thing we felt was we needed to be working efficiently and have loads and loads of space for water storage. We’re not organic, but we’re both scientists, and we look at it scientifically.”
Due to the geography of their farm, they had to be smart about how their water was used. They also explored ecologically friendly ways to cut down on nitrates while boosting the health of their produce. Their efforts have paid off, with native animals such as bats, birds, and other wildlife returning to the farm in droves.
“Our pastures have quite a lot of clover in them,” Cheryl said. “Clover takes nitrogen out of the atmosphere, and we are also quite prone to drought here because we’re on a south-facing shale slope. But we’ve planted the likes of plantain and chicory, which are more resilient to drought.”
“We have a lot of conservation projects,” she continued. “We have barn owl boxes up, and we had our first fledglings this year. We have a Swift conservation project going on, and for Sand Martins. We’ve also set up a lot of bat boxes, and my husband is kind of the chair for the Wexford Bat Group.”
This approach led the couple to set up the Poole BioSchool, which teaches groups about sustainable farming practices and has been recognized for its farming techniques. The farm has now hosted numerous EU delegations, as well as students and representatives from different countries, such as PhD students from Armenia and government officials from Zambia.
Cheryl added, “Being a scientist, our hypothesis coming home was that we could make a comfortable living from 72 cows on 100 acres and create habitats and be environmentally aware, and we’re doing that. Our milk quality is in the top five percentile. The River Bann, which flows through the farm, was also recently marked as pristine and awarded a blue dot. We’ve built and developed different habitats, such as ponds around the property. We have trail cameras around, and the amount of different wildlife we see on the trail cameras is so lovely.”
The couple’s farm stands out at a time when many farms in Ireland are coming under pressure to reduce the amount of nitrates in the soil and stop runoff into rivers, which has led to environmental crises, such as the toxic green and blue algae that infests Lough Neagh. Cheryl said, “In years past, farmers were encouraged to take out hedgerows and make big fields. All those things were detrimental, and they’ve all added together to create the problems we have now.”
The couple sells their milk through the Irish farming co-op group, Tírlan, which is part of the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS), and it was ICOS that nominated Cheryl for her work on the River Slaney Project to improve the health of the river.
“The Slaney would be one of the problem rivers in Ireland,” Cheryl explained. The project involved working with farmers to help identify ways they could save water and cut down on nitrogen and other runoff leaking into the river system.
Going up against other farmers from across Europe, Cheryl said it was ‘mind-blowing’ to receive the prize, which was awarded in Brussels on December 3.
She shared, “We were invited to the EU Parliament, given a tour, and had a meeting with all of the finalists and translators. We had to show a three-minute video of our work on the farm and then speak for a few minutes. It was after the EU Agricultural Commissioner spoke that it was announced I had won. It really was a mind-blowing moment.”
