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Column ‘Compared to an office job, there is a difference’

Noel McCall broke with his family tradition to become a farmer. He tells TheJournal.ie about why he’s now better off – despite the early mornings.

With the National Ploughing Championships under way in Co Kildare, farming was yesterday described as “the star of the Irish economy” by President Mary McAleese, who noted that farmers are seeing a recovery even as job cuts continue elsewhere.

Noel McCall is one of the only young farmers in Ireland who went into the profession without any family background. Here he tells TheJournal.ie how he is finding it – and why he reckons he’s better off.

MY FATHER WORKS in a builders’ providers in the town. I’ve a brother who’s into engineering, and another brother who has a few shops. But I got started working with some farmers in my summer holidays, while I was in school.

At first it was weekends during the year, then holidays, from the age of maybe 12. Then I suppose as I got older, I just got more of an interest in it. After I did my Leaving Cert I went to agricultural college, and from then I thought I’d make a career out of it. So it went from being a summer job to something I wanted to pursue.

When I was at college, there was always scouts who came over from New Zealand to recruit people to work on dairy farms. That always took my fancy, so I got over there, and stayed for two and a half years. Over there, it would be quite a common thing for people who aren’t from farming backgrounds to go into it. Because the facilities are there for people who don’t have land to go into a place – so you’d work for some older fella who would semi-retire, and you’d go in on a contract basis. I saw these fellas who were more or less their own bosses, and I thought ‘That’s what I’d like to do.’

When I came back to Ireland, there was a guy nearby in Wicklow who was fifty-odd, and had two sons who had no interest in farming. So I got in touch with him, and started in working. And now I’ve leased the whole farm from him. He got to 55 and retired completely, and I took the place and started again with my own dairy herd. The farm is just a mile from my parents’ house.

It hasn’t been easy. I had to buy everything I got. I look at these farmers’ sons, and they don’t realise how much they have. Even if it’s just their father giving them a tractor, that they didn’t have to buy.

‘I’ve probably done better than I would have done getting a wage’

A lot of my friends wouldn’t be farmers. What turned a lot of people off it was the seven days a week working. A lot of them would have finished on a Friday evening, gone on the beer for the weekend, and didn’t have to worry about work until Monday morning. Whereas I always had cows to milk. Or even if you go away for a day, you have to make sure you’ve cover there. So compared to an office job, there is a difference.

But I’ve always probably done better than I would have going out and getting a wage. I’ve a passion or something there. You do feel sometimes that it would be nice to just not have to get up in the mornings. But it’s a hard life, and it’s a good life. I would definitely say that the good outweighs the bad.

In terms of young farmers, there’s another fella over the road who’d be a bit younger than me, but looking around – other than that we’d be scarce. We go to a discussion group meeting once a month, and half the group would be guys in their 50s and 60s. Then you have a massive age gap, and there’s guys 30-35. There’s about 20 years there where there is definitely a lack of people in the industry. Ten years ago there was good money to be made building, or once you got into a bank or insurance company. And you had your weekends off as well.

A lot of the older farmers would be intrigued when they hear about the background of travelling to New Zealand. Because there’s such a hype in the local farming press about copying the New Zealand system. So they’d prick up their ears, and go ‘Well, we have to listen to what he has to say now.’

You’d hear quite a lot of negativity about farmers’ sons being forced into farming. So with my son now – my wife’s not from a farming background, and we always say whatever he wants to do, we’ll support him. Whether he wants to go work in a bank, or work in a shop, or go into farming. Too many people were forced into it in some ways – it was kind of a passion people had with land, that one son has to farm. And they were made do it. But the next generation are definitely more open-minded.

Noel McCall is a farmer in Wicklow. Macra na Feírme is the young farmers and youth organisation for 17-35 year olds; it has six key areas of activity: agriculture, travel, sports, public speaking, performing arts, and community involvement. Interview as told to Michael Freeman.

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    Mute Onlyblowingsmoke
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    May 12th 2014, 11:13 AM

    These ads are ridiculous. The journal is riddled with them. Every time I reopen the app some weird ad pops up. The independent is worse again. To quote the late Bill Hicks… The United states of advertising.. Seems to be spreading anywhere and everywhere. The Internet is becoming a bit of a joke. I await the day I see an ad for the kitchen sink and all.

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    Mute Rick Grimes
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    May 12th 2014, 11:20 AM

    Just install Adblock, problem solved.

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    Mute Onlyblowingsmoke
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    May 12th 2014, 11:24 AM

    Even on iPhone? Even installing Adblock doesnt prevent sites from tracking your data, location as Internet habits. Making it easier for Internet providers to target you with pre packed advertisements .

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    Mute Rick Grimes
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    May 12th 2014, 11:26 AM

    Well on my android, I have Adaway. It’s not on the store so just google it. It might be different for iphone, not sure. It’s a life saver. Being flooded with gaudy, tacky ads is bloody disgusting

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    Mute Simon
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    May 12th 2014, 11:30 AM

    Try disconnect.me or light beam to stop sites tracking you in Firefox.

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    Mute ipsum oleum
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    May 12th 2014, 11:31 AM

    NoScript, which works well on Firefox is now out for Android but I have not yet tried it on my tablet, will do so asp and report back :-)

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    Mute Chief
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    May 12th 2014, 11:33 AM

    What’s the problem with a free site displaying ads? This is how sites survive and how a large number of people are employed. Do any of you work for free? The less revenue a website makes the worse it gets. If you enjoy the journal why kill its source of income?

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    Mute Onlyblowingsmoke
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    May 12th 2014, 11:33 AM

    Always glad when issues are actually resolved on the journal rather than just resorting to the same old crap. Cheers guys will look into alternatives!

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    Mute Rick Grimes
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    May 12th 2014, 11:35 AM

    I suppose it is important to note that the site will not get revenue from people who block ads, so if there is a site that you really like, guy might want to consider disabling adblock so you can support the site

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    Mute Archtographer
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    May 12th 2014, 11:45 AM

    To be honest for a long time Mozilla have been providing a good open source browser for free, its only a few ads get over it. It would be a different story if we had to pay for the browser.

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    Mute Conn Rogers
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    May 12th 2014, 11:50 AM

    Well said, Chief and Rick… It’s getting ridiculous now how much everybody wants everything for nothing.
    “Gimme all my music, movies and online services for free and so help me if I have to look at an ad anywhere! I don’t care who invented/created/wrote/directed/performed this piece of work. I’m not paying for it.”
    Unbelievable.
    When Radiohead brought out their album “In Rainbows” and said people could decide themselves however much they wanted to pay for it; I thought it was such a cool idea and so worthy of support that I paid €10 for the 10 tracks. I still say that’s the best tenner I ever spent and I’ve never downloaded anything illegally since then.
    Artists/Writers/Coders/Everybody deserves to be paid for their work if other people get use out of it. Somebody has to pay. If you won’t, then at least let them earn something through advertising; which, as annoying as it can be, is the only reason most of the internet is free to use

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    Mute Byyys
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    May 12th 2014, 1:38 PM

    I don’t ever see ads on youtube, facebook, thejournal or other website. being using adblock plus for a good while.(google even payed off the coders so they wouldnt blocked google ads) my smartphone however is riddled with ads haven’t really looked into how to stop them. it does made me giggle seeing an Advert for Donedeal pop up when opening thejounral app seeing as Adverts.ie is owned by distilled media wouldn’t you think that would be advertised first on its sister websites and not donedeal?

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    Mute Chief
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    May 12th 2014, 2:00 PM

    They do advertise here, and Google doesn’t pay off coders. They allow adblocker on chrome, the news avast comes with adblocker turned on by default have Google done anything to stop that? Nope.

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    Mute Byyys
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    May 12th 2014, 2:03 PM

    @Chief before you say google dosent pay off codes… at least do a google search first to back up what you are saying!. http://www.businessinsider.com/google-saved-an-estimated-887-million-by-paying-adblock-plus-to-show-its-ads-2013-8

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    Mute Chief
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    May 12th 2014, 2:13 PM

    That’s not paying them off. What they did was pay to be on their whitelist as loads of other advertisers have also done.

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    Mute Ian Booth
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    May 12th 2014, 2:46 PM

    Ads pay for stuff. That’s where the internet gets it’s money. We get so much free stuff online, because ads pay for it.
    People need to stop getting so worried about ads. Jeez.

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    Mute Rick Grimes
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    May 12th 2014, 11:08 AM

    Those of us with Adblock won’t be seeing any ads thank flying spaghetti monster

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    Mute Dave Harris
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    May 12th 2014, 11:24 AM

    Ramen

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    Mute Ashling Fenton
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    May 12th 2014, 11:04 AM

    I say no to that

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    Mute Mick Collins
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    May 12th 2014, 11:05 AM

    Ah lads, don’t mess with my favourite browser and force me to go back to the snails pace Internet Explorer.

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    May 12th 2014, 11:05 AM

    I’m going to experiment with google chrome then.

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    Mute Dave Harris
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    May 12th 2014, 11:25 AM

    They should fix the constantly freakin crashing shockwave problem first

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    Mute Gerard Casserly
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    May 12th 2014, 11:23 AM

    Bye bye Mozilla.

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    Mute John Needham
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    May 12th 2014, 12:05 PM

    Mozilla employs over a thousand people, nearly all of its income comes from a deal with Google (90+ %) which expires this year, Google has a competing browser.

    It only makes sense for them to explore alternative revenue models to secure their future, its important to the web that we have options for browsers, and if they are (truly) open source all the better. I really don’t see the problem with them doing this.

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    Mute Charlie Mountney
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    May 12th 2014, 11:53 AM

    If the ads annoy you but there is awareness that the server or site needs revenue in order to continue then instead of blocking the ads or doing nothing and continuing to be irritated then why not take up mindfulness or look at other ways you can change your life so these intrusions no longer get to you. This will affect other areas in your life and perhaps improve it immensely. It is a lot easier to change yourself and then the world will change for you. It’s only perspective. Just a thought.

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    Mute Keith Wizzy
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    May 12th 2014, 11:40 AM

    Plenty of other apps to replace it so :)

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    Mute James Troy
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    May 12th 2014, 1:34 PM

    Edit the hosts file and no ads at all

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    Mute Brendan Rice
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    May 12th 2014, 1:46 PM

    Yes haven’t seen an advert in years.

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    Mute Darragh Hammond
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    May 12th 2014, 2:33 PM

    Firefox goes corporate- RIP open source browser

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    May 12th 2014, 11:43 AM

    I wonder if they will accept ads from the Iona Institute?

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    Mute Darren Stephenson
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    May 12th 2014, 1:04 PM

    It’ll be easy to avoid these ads thankfully :). If, like me, you want to default a web page when opening a tab -instead of those 8 boxes- just type about:config in the location bar. Go down to browser.newtab.url and make the value beside it your website (www.google.ie) Job done, no ads :)

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    May 12th 2014, 3:50 PM

    Just when I was going to swap over too, less work for me then.

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