Five farmers around the country have been filmed as they farmed with nature for a new TG4 series, Caomhnóirí na Talún which is currently running on Wednesdays at 8:30p.m.
From an extensive suckler farm on Inis Mór island to the karst beauty of the Burren, to the dairy heartland of east Cork, the IWR Media cameras followed as the farmers created and conserved habitats on their farms, pioneered new ideas and tried to find a way to protect wildlife and their living.
Across the country, catastrophic declines of birds, wild bees and native plants have been seen, a spokesperson for TG4 said.
“Even once common birds of farmland and open countryside like the skylark and kestrel, are now in deep trouble.
“The intensification of farming and forestry directed by policy and payments over decades, is seen as one of the most significant contributors to these losses as land use changed,” she contended.
“As more and more land was brought into production, there was less and less space for wildlife. Yet if biodiversity is to improve, if habitat loss can be reversed or even halted, it is across Irish farmland that change will happen.
“If it’s to happen, farmers are the ones who will turn this crisis around. And across the country there’s a growing number of farmers who are forging that path and farming with nature.”
The cameras followed the farmers for Caomhnóirí na Talún as they created habitats like ponds, nettle patches or bee scrapes on their farms and as they adopted new farming techniques like mob grazing or no-till to regenerate soil on intensive ground, all while trying to find a balance between nature and the realities of making a living from the land.
The farmers who took part in the Caomhnóirí na Talún series are:
Pádraic Ó’Flaithearta has a small dry stock suckler herd on Inis Mór and like hundreds of farmers across the Aran islands, Pádraic farms traditionally in one of the most usual habitats of machair and species-rich grassland.
John Arnold and his wife, Mary, run a dairy farm in Bartlemy, east Cork, and are part of the flagship farmer-led B.R.I.D.E (Biodiversity Regeneration in a Dairying Environment) project.
Full-time teacher and part-time farmer, Eoin Collins, farms a suckler beef herd with his dad, Michael, in Kilfenora, Co. Clare, where traditional farming practices maintain the rich flora of their Burren land.
Journalist and organic farmer Hannah Quinn-Mulligan farms in partnership with her grandmother, Catherine, on their Limerick farm, where Hannah has been increasing habitats and trialing new farming practices to help nature.
0utside Maynooth, Norman Dunne, alongside his dad, Michael, has switched to a regenerative farming approach which sees him try to rebuild fertility and life in the soil after decades of intensive tillage.
