Farming to help nature - Good idea but ...

Anything that encourages a higher level of environmental awareness and responsibility is to be welcomed.

That welcome must be especially strong when those initiatives come from the farm and food sector, our most dynamic

interface with a large proportion of the natural world that supports us all.

Bord Bia has launched the national Farming for Nature Award to share and celebrate stories of farmers who manage their land and livestock in ways Bord Bia deems to benefit nature.

Though entirely commendable, it is hard not to see this initiative through the perspective offered by implausible Bord Bia campaigns assuring us that Irish farming and its targets are sustainable.

That intensive farming depends on absolute control of land resources also undermines the very positive ambition behind the scheme.

The proof though will be in the pudding and if this award scheme does generate a new active commitment to cleaner farming then it will be a welcome milestone on a long road to a less destructive model of land usage.