‘I lived in Australia for a year but I chose to come back to work with my dad on our Tipperary farm’
After returning from Australia a year ago, 26-year-old Tipperary farmer Roisin O’Donnell is now back on her family farm – here’s why she worries for her future
‘We’re painted as the big bad wolf wrecking the environment and being cruel to animal’: Roisin O’Donnell on her family farm in Graigue, Poulmucka, Clonmel in Co Tipperary. Photo: John D Kelly Photography
Roisin O’Donnell is not surprised that her generation does not want to stay in farming. The 26-year-old dairy farmer says: “No school teacher ever told me, ‘You should be a farmer’. It’s pushed away all the time, ‘go and get the big job, be an accountant, be a nurse’, basically be anything but a farmer.
“Growing up, I saw exactly why farmers fell out of love with their jobs. When the quotas went, farmers like my father were given the impression that they could increase to any amount of cows they wanted and they did just that get some extra income.
