Nurturing nature and agriculture can co-exist, says Cork farmer
Paul Moore said: "Biodiversity is not straightforward, I think farmers probably feel a little under attack. Consumers and producers are linked so there is no point in pitting farmers against the rest." Picture: Howard Crowdy
An awful fright for East Cork farmer Paul Moore caused by screeching barn owls when he was walking back across the fields one night soon turned to unadulterated joy.
As a farmer who loves nature and biodiversity as much as being a custodian of the land, for years he had longed to see an elusive barn owl in his fields, and had almost given up the ghost.
A moment of temporary terror gave way to laughter, then to joy, when the barn owl boxes he had put up finally paid off.
“I had put up the barn owl boxes because they just weren’t in the area at that time. They were up there a few years but nothing was happening, I had almost given up on the hope of seeing a barn owl.
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“Around 11pm on a March night a couple of years later, I was walking from setting corn back across the fields, and next there were two barn owls screeching down at me from the top of the box. I got the fright of my life.
"The hissing and screeching, I wasn’t expecting that at that time of night, I had disturbed them inadvertently while they were sitting in their tree above the box.
“The fright I got soon turned into a real buzz. Being a bird lover all my life, it was wonderful to see,” he said.
Farmers like Paul Moore who adore nature as much as their profession exist around the country and they are ready, willing, and able to play their part in nature restoration and the biodiversity crisis, he said. The perception of some that farmers do not care about nature as much as agriculture and working the land is largely an unfair one, he says.
The Midleton farmer is one of many who care passionately about nature across Ireland.
He is a member of Farming For Nature, which was founded in 2018 under the auspices of the Burrenbeo Trust. It is a non-profit initiative whose mission is to support, encourage and inspire farmers who farm, or who wish to farm, in a way that will improve the natural health of our countryside.
There is a wide range of farmers from across the country in the network, applying good practice in areas such as wildlife, hedgerows, and rewilding. Paul Moore was nominated for the Farming For Nature network by National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) conservation ranger David Rees, who said “to walk across Paul’s farm in the winter is a delight”.
Mr Rees said: “Big flocks of skylarks and meadow pipits rise out of the winter stubble fields, whilst the wildbird cover crops are full of linnets and goldfinches. Posts provided for barn owls to perch on in the cover crop show that these areas are also home to good numbers of small rodents. The hedgerows surrounding the fields are dotted with reed bunting and the beautiful yellowhammers."
Paul Moore is a beef and tillage farmer who inspires others, Mr Rees said.
“The land is home to many bird species, many of whom are becoming scarce in the Irish countryside. There are barn owls, stock doves, swifts, ravens, buzzards, reed buntings, yellowhammers, meadow pipits, stonechats, starlings, house sparrows and more. Foxes, stoats, shrews and rabbits are also a common sight on the farm,” Mr Rees said.
Paul Moore, a seventh-generation farmer, said there is an unfortunate perception in the debate around climate change and the biodiversity crisis that somehow agriculture doesn’t care. That is unfair and needs to change because “consumers and producers alike are responsible for our own choices and are in it together,” he said.
“There may be some farmers with that attitude but by and large, we want to do what we can for nature. I always had an interest since I was small, out in the countryside, it stayed with me, just as it has done for many farmers.
“Farmers have been told for 70 years to farm one way and that nature wasn’t really important. Now suddenly the message has changed totally. There is a bit of confusion because everything pointed towards producing cheap food and that is what farmers did. We were told you get cheap food by efficiency from farming.
“Those mixed messages have led to where we are today. Biodiversity is not straightforward, I think farmers probably feel a little under attack. Consumers and producers are linked so there is no point in pitting farmers against the rest. We are all responsible for our choices and we are all in it together with a role to play. Pointing fingers is never good.”
Policy around nature restoration needs to be more coherent, because with the right guidance and incentives farmers and landowners will play their part, he said. In December, an example of the complications around nature restoration came with the announcement that ACRES payments to 18,000 farmers would be delayed until February.
The Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is Ireland’s new €1.5bn agri-environment climate scheme aimed at address biodiversity decline while delivering an income support for up to 50,000 farm families. It pays farmers for a wide range of measures taken to improve sustainability.
Mr Moore said: “ACRES is oversubscribed and people who want to won’t be able to get into it. The State is playing catch-up like we are when it comes to the environment because policy was always geared the other way, without much regard for nature.
“You don’t get paid much for taking part in agri-environment schemes, you certainly won’t make a living out of it. There also needs to be a mindshift among some farmers around nature, we’re not saying we are entirely blameless.
“There is a satisfaction to knowing you are trying to do some good, and to be paid accordingly would bring farmers along. Payment on results would be ideal—for example, there is no difference if one of my hedgerows is two feet wide or another is 10 metres wide when it comes to payments, the quality isn’t rewarded.
“I’d like to see nature treated almost like a crop, in terms of output of farming enterprise.”
Measures that Paul Moore has taken on his farm outside Midleton include tall and mature hedgerows with a mix of native species.
Some sections of hedgerow though are kept short and dense in order to provide ideal nesting habitat for yellowhammers, while there are wildflower margins around the tillage fields, stubbles are left over winter, or areas of wildbird cover are grown, in order to further improve the farm for birds, according to NPWS conservation ranger David Rees.
Field margins are not sprayed with insecticide, with Mr Moore preferring to allow natural insect predators to deal with some of the pests, while winter stubbles are also left unsprayed to allow a green cover to develop.
Cover crops are grown over winter to help improve the soil, reducing chemical inputs, soil erosion and benefitting soil invertebrates, Mr Rees said.
According to Mr Moore, education is key. Nature and environment should be treated with the same reverence as the core subjects in school, he thinks.
“Whether it is payments or education, we have to do better. People should be able to realise that a wider hedgerow is better than a scraggly gapped one. Thickening up a hedgerow takes time, an old one is better than a new one, it increases the biodiversity—things like that we should know.
“The basic education of that is key. Within 12 months of the founding of the State, nature was removed from the primary school curriculum. Policy, whether in farming or education, trickles into the natural psyche.
“I never did nature studies much in school, that’s where it needs to start, because young children love it. I was lucky because I was exposed to nature with the farming at a young age, tagging along with my older brothers who were into wildlife.
“I have three children, and I never forced it down their throats, but they have as much passion as I have. One is becoming a vet and one is an environmental consultant. They obviously have chosen their own path but perhaps that early exposure like I had made a difference. We can shift our mindset nationally if we all row in together.”
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