Irish Examiner view: €100k cost of drought for farmers
For farmers struggling to keep the show on the road, supports will be needed. Picture: Eamonn Farrell
Holidaymakers may have cheered the unusually long, hot summer, worrying about the rain only in so far as it affects the flowers in the garden.
But for many farmers, their livelihoods are facing severe strain as a result of what a grassland expert has described as Saharan conditions for grass growth in East Cork.
In a comprehensive report in in recent days, Zoe Geary has presented a picture which should concern us all.
While many of us were basking in the ‘glorious’ conditions, the grass was literally not as green on the fields of our rural neighbours.
The hard economic reality is that the net effect of this could be a cost running to six figures for some farmers.
Rather than having their livestock feeding on fresh grass throughout the season, it has now become clear that farmers are having to break into their winter food reserves.
Tim Casey, CEO of Cork Grassland Services says that grass growth across the country is low, with farmers in East Cork hit particularly badly.
He states that some farms may only produce half of what they need by the end of this year, and that a dairy farmer with a 100-cow herd could see a loss of up to €100,000.
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“Day by day, I’m getting more and more depressed. Every week it’s more bad news — heavier supplementation, greater reliance on silage and concentrates, and potentially difficult decisions around stocking rate, drying cows off earlier and winter housing,” Mr Casey says.
This summer’s reports from around the world of sometimes fatally extreme heat in numerous countries, while other countries experience life-threatening floods, must have brought home the living reality of climate change to even the most fervent deniers.
Agriculture minister Martin Heydon this week met with Teagasc and the main farm organisations to discuss the impact of the prolonged dry weather on farming and while it was not a full meeting of the National Fodder and Food Security Committee, it is essential that he listen openly to concerns raised, not just in terms of individual livelihoods but the potential impact on food production.
In fairness to Mr Heydon, he has acknowledged that this is a deeply troubling time for farmers, especially in the east and south of the country.
Affected farmers will be counting on him to keep to his word when he agreed that it has been a difficult year for them and that this will be borne in mind in Budget 2027.
For sure, help and advice is always a benefit but what happens in the budget will also be key.
For farmers struggling to keep the show on the road, supports will be needed.
Leaving Cert results were often viewed as a singular signpost to where young people would go in their lives but it was the very singularity of this focus which brought with it a litany of unwanted baggage, including an education system, programmatically narrowing towards a result on a day.
Education of the whole person, lofty notions of opening the mind and offering challenges as well as inspirations for further personal growth were some of the notions at risk of being thrown overboard as the Good Ship Points-race set sail.
For some, the seasickness associated with this points-driven voyage came in the form of an adverse effect on their mental health.
It is a big day for thousands of students. It is exciting.
But if they were advised to keep steady on the days that they sat down to do their exams it is equally worth advising them to keep calm when they open their results.
This is not the terminus. It is only one place along the journey.
But they have the opportunity, not to become fixated on the number, but to look around more widely and take a broader view of where they might most happily and productively take it from here.
The education system is not totally academic but it is predominantly so. Let us hope that some students will be attracted to taking on a trade rather than a university degree, if the degree is being done ‘for the sake of it’.
No prescription on the basis of what the country needs or what might even be more profitable will lead a student down a particular path.
The choice is theirs alone.
As they navigate the ever-changing conditions of the employment world they may have ringing in their ears the warning that AI will be doing this or that work in a few years. Perhaps it will take that much longer for AI to push the trades aside.
Whatever the results, it is a wonderful time of life with so many exciting paths ahead. The very best of luck to the Class of ’26!
The world’s greatest reality TV show, which of course the British Royal Family has become, is set for a new chapter that will rival the best twists ever seen on Traitors, Big Brother or Love Island – the return of Prince Harry and Meghan.
Ever since the star-crossed lovers got even more cross with the other members of the Royal Family and decided in 2020 that, yes indeed they were celebrities and that they would most definitely get out of here, they have now apparently decided that they will come back again.
We know that they are actually real people and like us they suffer “the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”, as that fictional royal, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, once described.
Yes, the least realistic reality TV show of them all is about to re-start. You have been warned. So must Harry and Meghan.
But it seems they’ve decided to come anyway.
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