DAIRY, COUNTY DOWN, NORTHERN IRELAND: Dairy cows have been Bronagh’s passion since she was a child, and she now combines working on a 200-cow dairy farm with working for a multinational company making mozzarella cheese. She hopes soon to own a few of her own cows too.

The farm is just a few miles from where Bronagh grew up, on the Ards Peninsula on the east coast of Northern Ireland, in County Down. The farm rears its own replacements for productive female cows, and any calves not used in the milking herd are raised for beef.

Raised in the countryside, Bronagh knew from an early age that she wanted to go into farming, so she took a degree in Agriculture at Queen’s University, Belfast, graduating in 2022, and has worked in agriculture ever since. She was subsequently awarded a Nuffield Next-Gen scholarship which involved travelling across the UK visiting dairy farmers and finding out about their businesses.

Alongside her dairy farm job, Bronagh works as Sustainability Project Manager for Leprino Foods, which manufactures mozzarella cheese, with factories in the US, Brazil, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. She focuses on supplier farms in Northern Ireland and in north west England.

Bronagh never ceases to find farming rewarding, whether she’s walking out of the milking parlour to a beautiful sunset, pulling out a healthy new born calf, or letting cows out to graze for the first time in spring.

She’s keen to see more support for farmers who try to innovate and grow. “This would encourage young people both within and outside farming to get involved,” she says. She also wants to give children exposure to farming, so plans to run some workshops with schools to inform those without a farming background about agriculture.

Bronagh is also close to realising her dream of keeping her own beef cows. “They will be native breeds which can thrive outside all year. I think it’s important to preserve our heritage while also producing super-tasty meat.”