Seamus O’Mahony

Seamus O’Mahony married to Ruth with two children, live in Kilbrittain, in West Cork was awarded the 2013 Nuffield Scholarship sponsored by the Golden Jubilee Trust. Seamus works as Business Development Manager with Barryroe Co-operative Limited. Seamus grew up as part of a dairy and agricultural contracting family business. His study topic is “Do smaller multi-purpose farmer owned Co-ops in Ireland have a Future?” He believes smaller Co-ops need to reinvent existing input supply chains to survive and prosper post 2015 when EU milk quotas are abolished. Barryroe Co-op have been paying among the highest milk prices in Ireland for many years through a federated milk processing structure at Carbery Milk Products www.carbery.ie Carbery itself is owned and operated by four neighbouring co-ops who operate independently otherwise in all other aspects including the supply of farmer inputs. Seamus will to travel to Canada, Denmark, Finland, South America and New Zealand to study efficiency in farmer co-op input supply chains for member benefit. Ultimately he aims to identify and recommend new input supply chain structures for sustainable co-operation for member benefit especially within the four West Cork Co-ops along the Carbery model for milk processing.
 

Do smaller Multi-purpose Farmer Owned Co-ops in Ireland have a future?