How can dairy farmers ensure their cattle receive the right volume of supplemental trace minerals on a daily basis? Two Irish brothers invented a solution. 
For the last decade, brothers Padraig and Tom Hennessey of Terra Services in Moone, Co. Kildare have innovated, laying down systems of water pipe networks, linking the parlour to the paddock for dairy farmers across the country.
More recently their sister company, Terra Liquid Minerals, has pioneered the integration of a smart delivery solution for their liquid mineral range into a farm’s water-pipe infrastructure. It is a remotely monitored solution and helps ensure that the dairy herd receives the correct volume of supplemental trace minerals on a daily basis.
The system also adjusts to the variability of Irish grass growth, local soil type and prevailing weather conditions, to help optimise herd health and performance. Padraig recounts how it all began and shares their intriguing plans for the future.
“Farmers might read about your company in the farming press, but they generally prefer to do business face-to-face.”
Starting out
In 2005 after completing an agribusiness degree in the UK, Tom returned home to Ireland to set up Terra Services, an irrigation company, initially aimed at the golf industry. Soon he was approached by some local farmers, to lay down water pipe networks on their farms. This was unique, as the only option available to farmers at the time was a do-it-yourself model. Word of Tom’s new service soon spread to the national farming press, and he decided to book a stand at the 2008 Ploughing to determine the actual level of interest among dairy farmers for his service.

At the time, I was working in Dublin launching a digital payments product. Tom asked if I could take a week’s holiday, to help him out on the Terra stand, at the following week’s National Ploughing in Co.

This post was originally published here - https://www.thinkbusiness.ie/articles/terra-liquid-minerals-dairy-farming/ on