Author: fintan-white

last Saturday I went to the Teagasc Sheep 2018 Farm to Fork day in Athenry last Saturday. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day. It was a true representation of Irish agriculture and the endless possibilities is beholds. With a particular focus being given to sheep farming, you could track the work being done nationwide stating with the soil right the way through the many cascades of production to the thousands of avenues in which people are making a living from sheep. As a sheep farming aspiring to add value to farm I was able to fill my head with ideas and see the opportunities that lie ahead. Aside from this it was a beautiful day weather wise and for me, it was a unexpected bonus to cross paths with many of my former class mates at UCD.

Sinead also had a stand in the Environment tent and was doing some steller work to interview any farmer who crossed her path, making inroads into raising awareness of climate change among Irish farmers.

Here’s some cool pictures from the organic farm that I visited in north Kerry on Wednesday, It is a farm which epitomizes much of the organic philosophy where plants and animals live in harmony. The farm is a dairy farm which produces cheese from the milk of its cows, the farm also grows hemp which is an interesting crop from a food security perspective as it can be considered a bio-mass crop. The farm was also had a very impressive vegetable tunnel where the farmer was selling direct produce, and to top off there was a free range sow with 8 bonnets running around after it. The farmer claimed that these completed her circular system as all the waste went to these guys. Here’s some pictures:

Great Day out in cork last Wednesday, learning about organic dairy, very interesting set up with regard to organic farming and climate change, his cows were producing as much milk as a good conventional herd but his stocking rate was low at 1.3 LU/ha so milk output per ha was low, on the other hand not much concentrates were used on the farm. It would be a good case study for the topic of GHGs and organics in Dairy

The IFOAM EU is the body which caters for organic policy support and certification on a EU level. Good place for up to date news, especially relating to the much anticipated CAP reform.

http://www.ifoam-eu.org/en/ireland

A happy Hereford cow avails of a relaxing graze as her calf snoozes in the scorching May sun, meanwhile grass is beginning to grow and the ewes have stopped getting concentrate supplements and everything is beginning to thrive here in north Kilkenny. Mixed grazing is an integral part to organic farming as a method of reducing the burden of nematodes picked up from a pasture based system.

Check out the web page for my cousins organic rapeseed oil, very healthy tasty oil but she also shares some interesting thoughts on organics and why we should eat organic produce
https://secondnatureoils.com/

As a little side project to my thesis, for fun I am going to frequently post updates on why to choose the organic lifestyle, this wont necessarily be addressing climate change rather than actually looking at how organics can bring other benefits to our lives. This can be in terms of health, bio-diversity and generally just living at one with nature. I think this might make for interesting reading for some of the visitors to my page.

So far from my research, the over-riding theory is that although organic farming has a lower ghg emission per unit area, the question mark remains over whether this holds true under a per unit output basis….at the early stages of my thesis this seems to be the defining question!!