Dawn Meats and Teagasc, supported by McDonald's and The Irish Farmers Journal have established a standalone suckler herd at Athenry, Co Galway to demonstrate best practice in sustainable suckler beef production.

The herd, which is known as the Newford Herd, is run on a fully commercial basis and demonstrates the potential of a moderately large suckler beef farm to generate a viable family farm income when operated to the highest level of technical efficiency and best practice.

The farm acts as a shop window for the technologies that drive profitability in a suckler herd and operates in a completely transparent manner, with all measurements and data available to visiting groups, other interested parties and the farming public.