Our Mission: creating a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable future in sheep farming.

As a family-owned business rooted in Ireland with a now global reach, we dedicate ourselves daily to simplifying the lives of sheep farmers through our cutting-edge products and services. We offer solutions that optimise and automate routine tasks, including animal handling, weighing, drenching, and parasite management. We are driven by the needs and desires of our customers, which motivate and inspire us to innovate.

The Cotter brothers, Jack and Nick, established Cotter Agritech in 2019, building on the initial concept of the Cotter Crate, which they developed on their family sheep farm back in 2016. Since then, we've continued to introduce new solutions with a singular goal: to ease the burdens of sheep farmers, working with them to achieve a profitable, sustainable, and enjoyable future in sheep farming.

Founded in 2019

Jack and Nick Cotter founded their company in Abbeyfeale, Co. Limerick in Ireland. Our head office is established there, where our leadership team is based.

Our R&D Farm

Our R&D farm plays a key role in our ability to innovate. The farm operates commercially to ensure research outputs are relevant to farmers on the ground.

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In-house Production

The Cotter Crate is manufactured and assembled at our HQ in Abbeyfeale, Co. Limerick. This allows us to implement the highest quality standards.

Markets

Farmers in 7 countries globally use our products to make their lives easier in the field or yard.

Our Executive Team

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO

Nick Cotter

Nick graduated from University College Cork with a Law and Business degree, where he studied as a Quercus Innovation/Entrepreneurship Scholar. Nick previously founded Cotter Bros Firewood in 2011, and Cotter Organic Lamb in 2019. Nick is a 2024 Nuffield Farming Scholar, investigating how AgTech can contribute to improving the profitability, sustainability and quality of life of sheep farmers. Nick is the 2022 Global Student Entrepreneur of The Year, and the 2023 FBD Overall Better Farming Champion.

CO-FOUNDER AND CTO

Jack Cotter

Jack holds degrees in Agricultural Mechanisation and Agricultural Engineering from Salesian Agricultural College and Limerick Institute of Technology. Jack co-founded Cotter Bros Firewood in 2011 and Cotter Organic Lamb in 2019 with Nick. Jack won the 2019 Engineers Ireland Student Engineer of The Year, and was named in the 2020 Sunday Independent Top 30 Under 30.

Chief Financial & Strategy Officer

Tim Cotter

Tim graduated from Trinity College with a Business, Economics and Social Science (BESS) degree. Tim went on to work for PWC as a fund manager, before returning home to co-found Mid Western Forestry. He now works as both our CFO and CSO.

Chief Product Officer

Nicholas Cotter

Nicholas has been a sheep farmer since 2004 and runs the R&D farm. He founded Mid Western Forestry in 1995, Ireland's largest family-owned forestry company. He works on new product development and product improvements, with a particular focus on analysing customer feedback.

Chief Operations Officer

Pawel Rosa

Pawel leads our in-house production team and focuses on process optimisation and quality standard implementation and maintenance.

Who We Are

Our vision and impact areas

Our vision

Solving The Great Farm Challenge – producing 45% more food to feed 10 billion people by 2050.

In order to feed the growing population, farmers have to produce 45% more food from the same amount of land, and this is alongside having to meet the sustainability goals set for the sector. So agriculture has to change more radically over the coming decades than ever before, even during the industrial revolution.

We believe AgTech is a large part of the solution - to help farmers deliver more efficient and environmentally friendly farming, while in return giving them a profitable, sustainable and enjoyable future in sheep farming.

Impact Areas

Improved Environment

We must continue to push for new ways to reduce the environmental impact of sheep farming. Our products are helping in this area. Lower use of Anthelmintics will increase microbial activity, particularly dung beetle populations on farm, the presence of which increases nutrient cycling, and improves grass growth. By breeding the most efficient animals with the lowest drug input requirements, we will lower the methane emissions associated with lamb production.

Animal Welfare

Society requires more efforts in this area. The Cotter Crate delivers safer and lower stress handling for the sheep, SmartWorm identify parasitism in individual lambs automatically so those who need treat get it. Automed ensures animals get the right amount, and are not over/underdosed. These all help towards improving the welfare of the sheep but more must be done.

Lower Drug Inputs

Society at large requires agriculture to reduce Antimicrobial use, which is predicted to cause more deaths than cancer by 2050. The Cotter Crate facilitates farmers to uptake vaccination of young lambs which significantly reduces antibiotic use. SmartWorm reduces Anthelmintic use (Anthelmintics are a subset of Antimicrobials) by 40-50% whist maintaining production. Automed further reduces drug use by 20% via weight based dosing. We are continuing to innovate hard to reduce the use of more commonly used drugs in sheep farming.

Economic Sustainability

Farmers put food on our plates, and are entitled to have food put on theirs. Our products improve farm profitability via more efficient handling, lower medicine bills and auto identification of the most profitable and carbon efficient stock, who have a lower days to slaughter and reduced drench requirement to achieve slaughter weights. In particular, cutting Anthelmintic use in half is critical to maintain drug efficacy. Sheep farmers can’t survive economically without them, so SmartWorm is ensuring the continuity of existence of profitable sheep farms globally. 

An Enjoyable Future in Farming

We must continue investing in R&D to support a future where sheep farming thrives as a sustainable, enjoyable, and rewarding option in agriculture for the next generation. Further streamlining farm operations, improving animal welfare, and helping deliver the industry's environmental and economic sustainability is key to this. Our vision is a world where sheep farmers are empowered with the tools and technologies they need to lead profitable, fulfilling lives with a gentle footprint on the environment.