MODERN AGRICULTURE IN Ireland has been built on a model of growth – growth in inputs, in outputs and growth in profits. But as those profits increase further up the supply chain, the primary producer, i.e. the farmer, is suffering at the bottom.

It has also been built on control, and to a certain extent fear. Fear of change has paralysed farmers across the country: fear of trying something different, fear of what the neighbours will think, fear of the grass not growing, fear of weeds, fear of the department official or the Bord Bia inspection.

This system leaves these farmers incredibly vulnerable to the ever-increasing shocks facing their farm businesses – shocks from climate change, from market volatility and from rising input costs – because they are unwilling, or unable, to change their own system of farming. They are trapped on a hamster wheel that keeps spinning faster.

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

This system is pretty damaging to our natural environment too, and the reports on the declining state of Ireland’s habitats, biodiversity, water, air and soil quality are well documented. It’s a system of farming that is no longer suited to the demands of modern society, and was never going to be good for a natural world under pressure.

So we’re left with a model of farming that above all else serves the economic growth of an agri-business sector, and a cohort of farmers........

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