Conservation rewards system needs to work for farmers if it is to actually work

Increasing numbers of farmers are participating in eco-schemes and this is critical to their success and to repairing the damage done to the Irish countryside in the last 50 years

Active farmer participation is critical to the success of many schemes and to repairing the damage done to the Irish countryside in the past half-century. Projects to save the curlew, and corncrake, for instance, all need farmers onside

There are hopeful signs that farmers and environmentalists can, indeed, be friends. Tensions between these traditionally conflicting interests seem to be easing, as more farmers get into eco-schemes.

There’s a growing realisation that farming is now about far more than food production. It’s also about nature, habitat, wildlife conservation, and improving water quality: in short, finding ways of farming which don’t damage the environment.