The teen entrepreneur transforming farm management

A teenager from County Down hopes an app he has developed will revolutionise how farms are run, giving hard-pressed farmers more time.

Ben O'Connor, 16, was inspired when his family's farm near Castlewellan moved from beef to a dairy operation.

That meant longer hours, strict routine and more tasks to schedule, all of which reduced the time his family had together.

The entrepreneur had previously developed a mail order gift business at the age of 13. After selling that last year, he turned his talents to managing farm tasks.

FarmFlow is now being trialled on several farms across the UK and Ireland. He hopes to roll out the app, which targets the farm paperwork burden, alongside his studies.

O'Connor noticed the impact on his father and brother when the family made the switch from beef to dairy farming two years ago.

"It is a lot different - it's rigid - you start milking in the morning, you have to milk in the evening. There's not as much flexibility," he said.

He also became more conscious of the paperwork and level of compliance involved in running a dairy operation.

Farmers in Northern Ireland work an average of 65 hours a week.

O'Connor said there was "a whole side of farming that the general public don't see", where farmers have late nights alone, completing jobs on the farm or filling in paperwork.

The app was developed with the idea of giving farmers more time with their families by making the business more manageable.

A campaign - the Empty Table - has been launched with the app to raise awareness of the effort that goes into producing food.

"I love to solve problems," O'Connor said.

"So I wanted to set up FarmFlow to sort of solve problems on our own farm and try and make it more efficient.

"I love keeping things on time and stuff."

After getting two A*, five As and two Bs in his GCSEs, he is going to continue his education.

But his long-term ambition is to work in agriculture, and use technology to improve how things are done.

"I think agriculture is such a traditional industry, it needs change and as more young farmers come into it, the industry will start to change.

"So I could see, whether it be more robotics and automation or more apps coming out, I think it will definitely be different and more efficient, hopefully."

Increasing efficiency is important to farmers like Jude McClements.

His family runs a 320-strong dairy herd, milking three times a day.

Tasks like keeping medical records up to date and making sure jobs like scraping out sheds are done can take a lot of time.

The app allows farmers like McClements to complete medicine records on the move and keep track of what tasks need to be done by whom around the farm.

McClements is a student at Ulster University in Coleraine and plans "to teach for a few years" after getting his degree.

Then he will return to the farm to run it with his brother.

He reached out to O'Connor as a fellow young farmer on social media, then jumped at the chance to be a tester farm for the app.

"Our Red Tractor (a food assurance scheme) inspection was coming up, so it was good to trial it, to see what was good about that, to give some feedback and suggestions.

"Coming from a farm, Ben knew a lot of the features farmers want.

"You can tell that it's designed by a farmer for a farmer."

And it has helped him feel more connected to the farm that his brother, their father and 90-year-old grandfather run while he is away at university.

"I feel like I'm in the loop and I'm not coming home at the weekends being like, well, what's happening?

"I can see what calves are sick, I can see what jobs have been done, what jobs need to be done.

"It means that I'm not walking in here after not being here for five days and I know exactly what has and hasn't been done."

He believes technological developments will help farmers become more efficient and cost-effective when working on tight profit margins.

That was what O'Connor hoped to achieve during these early days of testing the app, before launching it fully.

He has been nominated in the Northern Ireland start-up category of the Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards.

And his success so far is a dream come true.

"It's definitely really exciting." O'Connor said.