Bruce Thompson, Dairy Farmer, County Laois
Did you know that dung beetles can pull over 1000 times their own body weight? What’s more - on farms these tiny beetles can roll cow dung into balls and push them deep into the soil, allowing the nutrients to be recycled and enabling plants and grass to grow.
Bruce Thompson knows a lot about this. As an 8th generation dairy farmer now tending to 230 cows on his farm in Ballyfin, Co Laois, Thompson has a specific interest in sustainability and animal remedies on farm. He has recently been learning that by promoting innovative and sustainable farming practices - like the Trojan effect tiny dung beetles can have on the ecosystem – he can help protect his farm and the wider environment.
Dung beetles’ strength lies in their ability to increase soil fertility by aeration, and their ability to make cow pats disappear into the soil allowing the nutrients to be recycled for plants to grow. They also love eating parasites, therefore eliminating farmers’ need to dose cattle with costly quantities of ‘worming’ drugs. Lastly beetles act as a food source for wild birds, bats, pine martins and red squirrels on farms.
Thompson is keenly interested in giving young cattle a chance of develop their own immunity to parasites without the use of antibiotics. This is where the dung beetles come in, an interest which has led to a research scholarship from the Irish Nuffield Foundation. Now Thompson heads up Operation Defecation - a tongue-in-cheek moniker for a group of farmers around Ireland collecting various species of dung beetles in an effort to research their benefits to biodiversity on farms.
His study for building a baseline of the types and prevalence of dung beetles on farms is now showing both environmental and financial benefits to farmers: Thompson says he hasn’t had to dose any of his cattle since 2017, due to the positive effect of dung beetle activity on parasites.
“My main interest is in sustainability and animal remedies on farms and the long term use and effects dung beetles have on biodiversity and the environment,” said Thompson.
“In Ireland we are trying to make use of the best resources on the land, and dung beetles kill parasites and aerate the soil by burrowing holes about the size of a tongue into the ground. They also lessen the risk of (water) run off on farms.”
Thompson adds: “Economically it is sustainable, it’s great for the environment and for personal sustainability it means we don’t have to spend as much time dosing.”
The long term goal? “Our objective is to make this as simple as possible for farmers to learn more ways of being sustainable on farm and to come up with a blueprint parasite plan for the year. This will involve good stockmanship and a small degree of risk but the plan will essentially be very rewarding.”