A changed landscape

That year, 2025, also marks a quarter century since the beginning of the third Millenium AD. It has been a time of remarkable change in Irish farming, not least in the very landscape in which we farm. We are seeing ever more wind turbines dotting the countryside, very visible because of the preference for higher, windier locations. While solar farms are a relatively new phenomenon, their proliferation in recent years suggests they too will become a dominant visual imposition with further large acreages in planning or construction. We make no judgement on these developments. It is the prerogative of landowners as to how they utilise their resources, assuming they operate within legal and environmental constraints.
While clover has always been a minor species in our grassland profile for forever and a day, it is now becoming an integral part of our grassland composition, with mainstream advice that it should occupy up to 25 per cent of sward make-up. Clover is not as in-your-face as wind turbines or solar panels, but it does mark a significant change in the make-up of our grassland from 25 years ago. After many years of consistent planting since the 1980s, forestry now occupies a significant portion of our landscape, especially in marginal and upland areas. Despite a fall-off in planting in the past decade, afforested land, still predominantly made up of Sitka spruce, now covers up to 11 per cent of our countryside.
Inside Irish farmyards, there has been transformative investment in infrastructure, including massive expansion of manure and slurry storage facilities. Driven by regulation and the demise of milk quotas a decade ago, this farmyard development has included ancillary facilities to house an expanded dairy herd as well as milk extraction and storage capacity. While not as obvious as some other infrastructure developments, the increasing numbers of automated milking systems (AMS) could also have a transformative effect on many farms in the coming decades. It is a development which may lead to increasingly confined cow management, and, as yet, there has been little debate or reflection around potential impacts on the reputation of Irish dairy as a grass-based production model, or, at a basic level, the texture, colour or composition of our world leading butter brand, Kerrygold. Even without further AMS adoption, our improving cow genetics are tempting producers to increase concentrate inputs, many of them imported, to increase margin, or at least volume output. A significant proportion of our beef cattle are now finished in confined systems. It provides year-round supply, while somewhat negating an increasing consumer focus on grass-fed beef. Again, this should at least give pause for thought as to the direction of Irish livestock dietary management.
Elsewhere, the past 25 years have seen an increasingly ageing farm population, resulting in much debate but little enough remedial action. It is a challenge acknowledged across Europe and more widely. Perhaps it is not solvable, though no one wants to hear that kind of supposedly defeatist language. Yet farmer demographic history bears out the point.
Compared to 25 years ago, our tractors and ancillary machinery are larger and more efficient. Our livestock genetic advances have delivered in every productivity factor. Artificial intelligence has already impacted on Irish farming. It must be a tool for our use, not an instrument that diminishes our individuality, vitality and imagination.
Christmas beckons. In the midst of all the change we are experiencing, we wish our readers a quiet period of reflection on the past and the future.