Author: National Ploughing Association

Glanbia Ireland plans to double the acreage of gluten-free oats

Glanbia Ireland is aiming to extend the acreage sown to gluten-free oat crops amid increasing demand amongst consumers for these products.

Farmers are being urged to come and talk to the Glanbia Ireland Agronomy Team at the Ploughing Championships – Block 2 – Row 5 – Stand 114 – to assess their farm’s suitability for growing the crop.

“Gluten-free oats is a premium grain and delivers better opportunities for farmers. We plan to double the acreage, albeit off of a small base, to keep pace with growing demands for gluten-free produce,” said Glanbia Ireland’s Head of Grains John Kealy.

The crop attracts a premium of €40/tonne over green wheat price, with all harvesting and transport carried out by Glanbia Ireland using dedicated gluten-free machinery. 

All seeds are purchased through Glanbia Ireland as the crop requires extremely strict specifications to deliver food-grade gluten-free produce.

Previously, Glanbia Ireland’s gluten-free oat crops were mainly grown in the Kildare, Laois and Carlow region. However, the Premium Grains team are looking to extend the landbase sown to gluten-free outside of this area in cases where farms can meet certain criteria.

Glanbia Ireland’s Grain Quality Operations Manager Mariea O’Toole said: “We are looking for farmers with suitable rotations on their land to suit this crop which has to be sown either after a non-cereal break crop or grass. There are specific requirements that a potential grower’s land has to meet before it would be considered suitable to sow this crop, such as having low levels of wild oats or invasive brome.

“There are other factors that have to be taken into account such as farm size and field access, as dedicated gluten-free machinery would have to be brought to the area for harvest.”

Nurney national school who along with our partners St John’s church and Nurney villa soccer club are fundraising at the ploughing with a draw with a holiday theme. We ve a €2000 holiday voucher, a bbq, a stena line voucher for a ferry trip and a hamper of local artisan products. We re located at catering area A near gate 5 and have lots of local prizes each day.
Our goal is 2 fold. Theres the money aspect – the school uses the funds like most to break down the costs of buses, extra curricular etc for families, the church needs on going maintenance and the soccer club (longest established in the carlow league) is buying and developing a new pitch and walking track in the village – we don’t have much else here! So the money will be gladly recieved. But as important to us is the coming together of the 3 main things in our community and the building of relationships between people and giving a sense of purpose and direction to a rural area.

We are delighted to be attending the Ploughing again this year. We are looking forward to meeting with children and young people from all over the country, as well as with parents and those who work with children.

At our stand we will be carrying out children’s rights workshops with small groups of children. These sessions have been really successful in recent years and get great engagement. We will be conducting surveys with children and we will be giving young people the chance to play our newly launched game ‘Rights Runner.

We will also take this opportunity to tell people about Beyond Limits; a summit for young people with disabilities that we’re hosting in Croke Park in October.

The Ombudsman for Children, Dr Niall Muldoon will be at our stand on Tuesday and Wednesday

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