Page 2 - Farming Environment News Today

A new research centre aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improving the environmental sustainability of Irish agriculture has been announced.

A nationwide campaign for the right to access private farmland for recreational purposes and the right of way for walkers has been met with resistance by some farmers and landowners.

‘No pain, no gain” seems to be the basis for most of our agri-environment schemes.

Tillage farmers have spent a lifetime seeking perfection. They have bought new machinery/technology as soon as it comes to market, waited for new chemicals to control weeds and disease, adopted crop rotations and have left no stone unturned to produce the perfect crop.

A few years ago, I met a man who promised to get me a great story. At this stage in my journalistic career the scepticism hadn’t set in, and I found myself following the man, Barry O’Donoghue of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), to a bog in Kerry to find a curlew.

Francie Gorman takes the microphone and pledges that if he does win he will prioritise defending incomes and the better communication nationally of rural communities’ concerns. We are in the Tullamore Court Hotel and the hall is packed with farmers curious to hear from the two contenders who want to lead the Irish Farmers’ Association for the coming four years which will see the challenges for farm families become even more stark.

There is a movement that has been gathering momentum for some time on the outer edges of the countryside, and I believe we are in the midst of the dawn of the gentleman and lady forester.

Farming supports will make up at least a third of climate action expenditure between now and 2050, the government’s budget watchdog has said — and it “assumes” that agriculture will need to cut its emissions by 40pc by 2040.

When I was in school, we learned about transhumance — bringing faraway herds down from the mountains for the winter. There was no mention of the opposite practice just down the road from us in Clare and Galway.

For US corn farmers, the rise of green jet fuel is their best hope of staving off an existential threat.