The Dublin to Galway Greenway, TB and craft beer brewing all feature on tonight’s episode of Ear to the Ground.
Helen Carroll travels to Mullagh, Co. Galway to meet people that the greenway will affect.
She meets those resisting any attempts to place the cycle path across their land, and those behind the project, saying that it will bring massive development and tourism opportunities to the area.
Plans for the cycleway have come to a halt due to opposition from landowners west of the Shannon and the Dublin to Athlone half of the cycleway is expected to be completed by 2017.
The part west of Athlone been ‘paused’ by Transport Minister Paschal Donohoe.
Ella McSweeney looks at the expansion of craft brewing and microbreweries and how this has created new opportunities for growing barley and other ingredients for beer.
Simon Lynch and Quincy Fennelly set up the Wicklow Wolf Brewing Company and horticulturist Simon decided to establish the first commercial hop plantation in Ireland for 20 years, Ear to the Ground finds out.
The tall vines are supported by cables and poles making the crop very capital intensive, but so far the yields have been good as Ear to the Ground discovers.
Darragh McCullough looks at bovine TB in Co. Wicklow on this weeks Ear to the Ground.
In the past five years the incidence of bovine TB has halved to a record low of 16,000 reactors in 2014.
The Department of Agriculture says the improvement is due to the targeted culling of badgers from infected areas.
However, wildlife groups disagree and brand the exercise as mass slaughter.
Research in Teagasc has found that TB resistance is highly heritable and selective breeding could give farmers another weapon in the fight against this dreaded disease.