Joe McNamee: Sustainable farming at the inaugural Farming for Nature Festival
The Farming for Nature festival site at Ballykilcavan Farm, where David Walsh-Kemmis and his family have been farming for 13 generations
I spend almost as much time thinking about food as I do eating the stuff. That includes thinking about agriculture, especially agriculture in Ireland — or at least what now passes for agriculture in Ireland. Irish agriculture appears to have kicked off during the neolithic age (4,000BC-2,500BC), and the main crops were barley and wheat while the introduction of domesticated cattle and sheep, kicked off a dairy sector that has never since let up.
Once agriculture became properly established, its impact was profound, engineering the creation of what we now recognise as modern society, with the introduction of specialist trades and crafts, population growth, construction of permanent buildings and structures, and technological innovation (pottery, weaving, tools etc).
