7 days ago
Siobhan Kavanagh: Seeing the progress that farmers are making to improve environmental sustainability
At this time of year, I am packing up the car with wellies, raingear, and sun screen, and heading out around the country to judge the family farm finalists in the Teagasc FBD Environmental Sustainability Awards.
It's a busy few weeks, but equally rewarding to see the progress that farmers are making to improve environmental sustainability on their farms while at the same time continuing to produce high quality food profitability.
All these farmers are highly motivated to protect the environment for various reasons. They care about protecting the environment — the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the wildlife around us. They take great pride in managing their land in a way that supports nature and biodiversity.
They want to leave it better than they found it for the next generation.
Interestingly, many will comment on what previous generations did to look after the environment, and want to maintain and improve it for the future.
Others will reflect on the way hedges and trees were removed back 40-50 years ago, and want to reverse that by better managing existing hedges as well as planting new hedges and trees.
These farmers are very conscious of how global and national policies are driving change.
In 2015, world leaders agreed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals — a global plan to fight poverty and protect the planet. One of the key outcomes was the Paris Agreement — which aims to limit global warming to below 2C, ideally below 1.5C.
These policies will impact how we farm, but will also come with support to help farmers adopt new, greener technologies.
Finalists in the awards programme are taking advantage of the array of supports available to them — including the Signpost Advisory Programme, TAMS grants, water EIPs, ACRES programme, straw incorporation scheme, protein schemes, and many others. Irish consumers want to eat more sustainably and know that their food has a low environmental impact. International studies back this up — more people than ever are choosing food based on its environmental footprint.
For farmers in the awards programme and all farmers, that means continuing to deliver high-quality food while proving it's produced in a sustainable way.
Data is critical to providing the proof of what we do. Tools like AgNav, Pasturebase, ICBF, NMP, and others are used by these farmers as a decision support tool on their farms, but also used nationally as proof points.
Climate change isn't a distant problem now. It's already affecting us and how we farm in Ireland. The country is seeing wetter winters, drier summers, and more extreme weather events.
These farmers are addressing this through actions including building a reserve of silage for the difficult years, use of multispecies, creating a diverse cropping system, better planning of grazing infrastructure etc.
There is a significant awareness that many climate-friendly actions also help the farm become more efficient and profitable. Steps like improving grazing practices, using clover, enhancing animal health, improved breeding and more precise use of fertilisers are helping to reduce emissions and increase income. The 13 finalist farmers are also better at managing their soils, hedgerows, and trees to help capture carbon from the air and store it in soil and above ground biomass.
