It's silage season, and that means boys, girls and their big machines

For a few frantic weeks each year, the farmers of the countryside develop a military precision. Weather forecasts are studied with intensity. Phones ring constantly. Contractors become impossible to contact unless you happen to know somebody who knows somebody. Entire family schedules are reorganised around the possibility of “a fine dry day this Tuesday.”

Back roads that spent most of winter carrying the occasional Nissan Qashqai suddenly become occupied by machinery so large it appears to have been designed less for agriculture and more for terraforming distant planets.

I was recently at an event dedicated entirely to the art of silage making. Not farming in general. Not beef or dairy. Just silage. A whole day devoted to mowing, tedding, raking, baling, drawing, clamping and covering. Thousands were in attendance. Honestly, it was fascinating. There were machines there worth more than some houses.

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Men stood around them in reverent little circles, nodding quietly at tyre widths and pickup systems the way a wine sommelier might discuss notes of blackberry and oak. Tyres were kicked with serious intent. Horsepower figures were discussed in hushed tones. I overheard one misty eyed man say, admiringly, “There’s some pony in the front of that now,” in a voice softer than many reserve for their spouses.

The thing is, even I was impressed.

Machinery was never really my thing. I sometimes move our oldest tractor around the yard with the tentative caution of somebody attempting surgery using oven gloves. Yet even I can’t help but marvel at the sheer scale of modern silage operations. Thousands of tonnes of grass cut, gathered and stored in tiny weather windows.

We often joke about “shiny metal disease” in farming circles, but what struck me recently is that this sector isn’t merely an expensive hobby. The Irish farm machinery industry is now worth almost €5 billion annually to the Irish economy according to the FTMTA economic report) and supports close to 25,000 jobs putting it within touching distance of the value of international tourism.

That’s extraordinary really.

Because most people see a tractor passing the road, but hey don’t see the mechanics, welders, engineers, tyre suppliers, contractors, software developers, finance companies, precision GPS systems and manufacturing businesses behind it all. Silage season is one of the few times this enormous hidden rural economy suddenly becomes visible.

It’s also one of the few remaining events in modern life still entirely controlled by weather. No app or algorithm can fully command an Irish June, which is why silage season carries a strange mixture of stress, excitement and gambling energy. Everybody knows rain is coming eventually. The challenge is to beat it.

Perhaps that’s why it grips farmers so completely. For a few short weeks, the countryside becomes theatre. Convoys command the back roads. Children count trailers from gates. The smell of fresh-cut grass hangs in the evening air. Hayfever sufferers stock up in zirteck and local honey. WhatsApp groups buzz like stock exchanges.

Even the soundtrack exists. Marty Mone built an entire anthem around it: “mowing, baling, lifting, drawing.” All true cultural phenomena has its own theme tune.

And every summer, as another colossal harvester appears barrelling around the bend, driven by a vape wielding fetus on a 12 hour shift, I’m forced to conclude that perhaps future civilisation is more resilient than we previously thought.