Story:

A willow Project developed by the Farrelly brothers in Kells Co Meath won the overall prize worth €15, 000 in the JFC innovation awards. The brothers Pat and Peter Farrelly along with project manager John Keeling collected the prize. The competition was sponsored by JFC and supported by Teagasc, DARD NI, LEADER and the Irish Farmers Journal.

It was business as usual when I visited the Farrelly Brothers outside Kells, Co Meath, the morning after the awards. Pat Farrelly had gone to Dublin to meet with Enterprise Ireland and Peter was working away in what was the old Drummonds yard. The Farrelly brothers, well known contractors in the Meath area, had diversified into clearing and chipping timber ahead of the new roads. At one stage, they employed 98 people in the various elements of their business. With contracts reducing and money tightening, they have had to cut numbers back to 35. They started looking at the planting, growing and harvesting of willow and, most importantly, potential markets for the wood chip. Their new willow project is set to lift employment again and put more money into the local economy. “They planted 80 acres of willow in 2007 and will have planted 1,200 acres this year. They have plans to plant 25,000 acres over the next few years. They started encouraging farmers to plant willows by giving them a guarantee that they would buy the green crop at harvest for €30 a tonne.

“On good land, this has the potential to return “€200 an acre to farmers” said John Keeling who is overseeing the project. The biggest hurdle for farmers is the initial investment costs, even with the 50% planning grant from the Government. John believes that a 100% planting grant would kick-start the industry and would cost just €4 per tonne of dried timber to grant aid compared with €64 a tonne, which it is currently costing to grant aid forestry.

The brothers have already invested €500,000 in specialised planting and harvesting equipment, as well as a new shed and boiler for drying the chip that cost €300,000.
The boiler was 50% funded by Meath LEADER. However this investment pales into insignificance compared with their project to build a 15MW Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant, set to cost €46m.

The brothers have joined up with their local boiler company HDS Energy to build the plant. Some 180 jobs will be created to build the plant and there will be 80 to 100 jobs created to run it. The plans have gone to Bord Pleanala but when it is running, it will require 125,000 tonnes of fuel a year.

The plant will be fuelled by willow and wood, with the heat used to dry the willow chip. They have also identified four other potential customers for high quality dried willow chip. Contact 046 9245929 or email farrellybros2@eircom.net

(Extract by Peter Young - Irish Framers Journal 17th April 2010)

Importance of Innovation – John Concannon

Innovation has never been needed more than in the current economic climate and it is great to see so many different groups getting together and making things happen rather than waiting and sitting around and expecting that things might happen, John Concannon, JFC Managing Director told all in attendance “This Years entries demonstrated the level of innovation and creativity that exists in the rural community. We must remember that every single job created in Ireland by any indigenous Irish company today is important and we must all work together to make this really possible in what ever way possible, said John