Donal Hickey: Climate crisis cost to farmers

In the decades ahead, farmers will most likely have to cope with long periods of drought, water shortages, and implications for farm animals and crop growth

Due to their work, farmers know plenty about climate and generally worry about too much rain. Picture: David Creedon

Farmers are not short of people telling them what they must do to combat climate change. Whatever remedial action they take will cost money, loads of it, but there’s less clarity as to who is going to pay. That will, of course, largely be the taxpayer in one guise or another.

One of the big challenges is to protect our waterways. Ireland’s water quality continues to decline and 53% of water bodies are at risk of not achieving “good’’ status. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says agriculture is the single biggest pressure contributing to pollution, with a third of rivers and lakes and a quarter of estuaries having excess nutrients.