This week’s episode of Ear to the Ground will meet one of the many farmers in the country busy with calving and lambing.
Tonight’s episode will also feature a man who has been training sheepdogs for decades as well as a chef trying to convince cattle farmers to change from beef to a vegetarian option.
Helen Carroll travels to the Doran farm on the border of counties Roscommon and Galway, near the town of Ballinasloe, to see twin lambs being born.
Enda Doran is just one of the farmers who is very busy this spring in Ireland, where over 2m cows are set to calve and as many sheep are expected to lamb.
Spring is the busiest time of the year for Irish farmers and Doran is no different, with 200 ewes to lamb and over 100 cows to calve and milk.
He also runs a busy machinery contracting business and has some barley and oats to sow.
The sheepdog trainer is still going strong at 98-years-old and he reckons he has trained several hundred sheep dogs.
Ella Mc Sweeney travelled to Four Roads to spend the day out on the farm with Moran in order to find out more about what makes him so good at what he does.
However, Ella also sets up a a competition between Dan’s Border Collie, Dell, and a €2,000 drone to see which one can herd sheep the best.
Darragh McCullough made the journey to Carnew Mart in Co. Wicklow, where Ear to the Ground challenged vegan chef James de Burca to prepare a meat free meal for the farmers attending the mart.
In recent months, former President Mary Robinson and TD Mick Wallace have called for people to reduce their consumption of meat in order to reduce the impact of climate change and carbon footprint.
Darragh investigates beef producers role in climate change and asks should we cut down on our carnivorous appetites to reduce the impact of climate change.
Ear to the Ground will be aired on RTE 1 at 8.30pm tonight and will also being repeated on Sunday.