A farmer from north west Mayo has warned people to start “planning accordingly” for weather defences, as his recent experience of a landslide caused much crop damage.
Farmer, George O’Malley experienced an upstream landslide on his tillage land, about 700 feet above sea level overlooking Beltra Lake on September 25 this year.
He said the slide “completely destroyed” circa 800m of the farm access road.
According to O’Malley, the yield at circa 2t/ac was “back significantly” on previous years, but the moisture levels were good, averaging 16.2%.
He said that while there were “fairly serious” mountain slippages in 2009, which came down on to his land, he had never experienced weather damage like this landslide.
He added that there was another slide around the same time, with one happening further over the Beltra commonage.
“As the saying goes, of all the bars and all the towns, why had you to come into mine?,” O’Malley joked.
Weather defences
O’Malley said “there’s no doubt about it” that climate change is “at play”.
“The weather patterns are changing. The only thing you can be sure of is the uncertainty,” O’Malley told Agriland.
O’Malley said he was “fortunate enough” to have a break in weather conditions, which allowed for repairs to be completed on his land by October 14.
The combine was back in the field on October 15, and by October 16 the entire field of husky spring oats was successfully harvested.
He acknowledged the work of Mayo County Council. The council took away a lot of material and will work with O’Malley to put in place defences.
“It’s not so much for if it happens again, but so there won’t be as much damage when it happens again,” he said.
“Cases like this are the type of thing that people might not want to be known, because they’d think it would reflect badly on their own management or husbandry, but I have no problem bringing this to attention.
“Lessons have to be learned otherwise we will be sweeping up these messes all the time,” O’Malley said.