| City bees show a richer diet than bees from farmlands |
| Bees in urban and suburban settings have a richer, healthier diet than bees in farmland settings, say researchers. Honeybee hives from 10 National Trust sites were studied in an attempt to assess the link between bee health and the diversity of pollen they encounter. Bees from farmlands showed a distinctly narrower range of pollens than both urban and untouched "natural" settings. // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Peter McCloskey on 25/08/2010 ( Reads : 27 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Farmers to repay EU €5.7 million over scrubland |
| Sir - It is a further blow to some 8,500 farmers who will be forced to repay €5.75 million in Single Farm Payments and Disadvantaged Area Payments by the Department of Agriculture, who are alleging that areas of scrubland were included in their payments and the penalties will apply, retrospectively, going back to 2005. Farmers and welfare recipients are trapped into singing a declaration form, which states that any false or misleading information contained in their application may lead to fines or terms of imprisonment. Once again, it appears that the farmers are pawns on a chessboard. SEE FIE'S CAMPAIGN OVER PROVIDING GRANTS FOR SCRUBLAND // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 07/08/2010 ( Reads : 41 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Nitrates directive excessive, Dáil committee told |
| THE FULL implementation of the nitrates directive would seriously affect the competitiveness of farmers, Fine Gael environment spokesman Phil Hogan said yesterday. He was speaking at the Joint Oireachtas Environment Committee which was discussing forthcoming revisions to the nitrate regulations with farmers bodies. // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 02/08/2010 ( Reads : 36 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| NI told to pay for 60m European farming subsidy errors |
| The Executive needs every penny it can get its hands on at the minute, but now Europe is demanding £60m back for payments made in error to farmers in Northern Ireland. The problems were discovered by European auditors who were sent to Northern Ireland to carry out spot checks on some of the individual subsidy claims made by farmers. // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Peter McCloskey on 02/06/2010 ( Reads : 82 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Fire destroys over 1,000 acres of trees |
| OVER €500,000-worth of timber was destroyed as one of the biggest fires ever seen in Kerry raged across more than 1,000 acres of forest and scrubland in the Lyreacrompane area for over 12 hours on Saturday. The fire stretched for five miles at its height and threatened to engulf four homes as well as a number of cattle herds during the course of the afternoon and evening. It took 50 firefighters up to ten hours to finally get it under control as the alarm was stood down close to 12.30am on Sunday morning. // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 29/05/2010 ( Reads : 140 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Farm payments blamed for wildfires |
| CHANGES TO the single payments scheme for farmers are contributing to wildfires which have devastated thousands of hectares of countryside, according to 19 environmental groups. They have written to Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith claiming the changes mean there is now an economic incentive for farmers to burn scrubland. Forestry worth millions of euro has been destroyed in the last six weeks and there has been untold damage to birdlife recovering after the very severe winter. The letter said new rules require areas of scrub and parts of hedgerows growing into fields to be removed or marked on a farmers's application and excluded from payments. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 29/05/2010 ( Reads : 123 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| 98% of chicken has harmful bacteria - study |
| A new study suggests that 98% of chicken produced in Ireland is contaminated with a potentially harmful bacteria, which is the most common cause of food-borne illness here. The study by the European Food Safety Agency also says Irish chicken had the second highest incidence of the bacteria, campylobacter, among 26 EU countries in 2008. The level of incidence in Ireland was nearly one-third higher than the European average. Commenting on the findings, the FSAI said a study it is in the process of completing has found that 13% of external surface packaging on chicken products and 11% of retail display cabinets were contaminated with campylobacter. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 18/03/2010 ( Reads : 214 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| National Trust creates 300 new allotments |
| The National Trust is almost a third of the way to meeting its goal of creating 1,000 public allotments in the UK by 2012, with enough growing spaces established over the last year to produce 850,000 lettuces or 16,000 sacks of potatoes. According to the conservation charity, more than 300 allotments have sprung up in restored kitchen gardens, farmland and vacant land close to trust properties. // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Peter McCloskey on 23/02/2010 ( Reads : 258 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Fungus strain puts potato crop at risk |
| THE POTATO crop is under severe threat once again from blight with the emergence of a new strain of the fungus Blue 13 which has arrived here from Britain where it was first detected in 2005. Farmers already suffering from severe crop losses because of frost and snow were told yesterday at the National Potato Conference that the new strain had spread to many parts of Ireland and may be adapting to Irish conditions. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 10/02/2010 ( Reads : 256 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Farmers count cost of wet summer |
| Over 80% of Northern Ireland’s cereal crop remains in the ground after torrential summer rains hampered harvesting, Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew has said. With rain on 42 of the 62 days in July and August, farmers have had little opportunity to get onto the land and, once there, they struggled to cope with wet and waterlogged fields, she said. Potato farmers are also in difficulties due to late planting and problems with routine spraying which have resulted in widespread blight, the minister said. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Peter McCloskey on 18/09/2009 ( Reads : 498 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Farming scheme went four times over budget to €1.1bn |
A controversial farm building scheme will end up costing taxpayers a staggering €1.1bn -- over four times its original price tag.
The Farm Waste Management Scheme (FWMS), which had no cash limit, initially carried a budget estimate of €248m, it emerged last night. But it has already cost the State €550m in grants for the building of slatted sheds and slurry tanks and is now poised to cost another €561m following a glut of late applications ahead of last December's deadline.
Costing just €21m in its first year of operation in 2006, the scheme's costs have been rising steadily every year from €114m in 2007 to €414m in 2008. This year, the scheme will cost €220m, followed by another €220m next year and €121m in 2011.// Read More // | |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 15/09/2009 ( Reads : 510 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| It's wrong to believe that nature is always best |
| At last, the myth about organic food being better for us has been exploded. Maybe now we can get down to the serious business of feeding our growing population. For years, it was the nation's favourite growth industry. Throughout the Nineties and for much of this decade, organic leeks, carrots, onions and other fruit and vegetables enjoyed a startling upsurge in popularity. More and more supermarket shelf space was devoted to their sale as the middle class rushed for food that was natural and free of pesticides while local entrepreneurs, their car boots bulging with knobbly turnips and strange-looking potatoes, delivered an ever-increasing number of organic veggie boxes to households round the country. // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Peter McCloskey on 03/08/2009 ( Reads : 571 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Minister Sargent announces suspension of grant aid for organic sector |
Mr. Trevor Sargent TD,, Minister for Food and Horticulture at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, has announced that the Schemes of Grant Aid for the Development of the Organic Sector would be suspended for new applications with effect from Friday, 10th July. Minister Sargent noted that the number of applications for the Schemes had increased substantially in the last two years, and that applications now on hand would fully use up the allocation in his Department's vote for 2009. "The increased level of demand for these schemes is evidence of an increased level of confidence in the sector", Minister Sargent said. // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 24/07/2009 ( Reads : 575 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Wildlife body voices concern over agriculture, rural living |
IRELAND'S LARGEST wildlife conservation body, BirdWatch Ireland, has expressed concern that the changes in the Reps scheme will drastically affect precious wildlife and habitats, agriculture itself and the quality of life of rural people.
It said the unprecedented cutbacks, including a reduction in funding of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (Reps) by € 140 million per year, posed a real threat to agriculture as an industry and as a livelihood in Ireland, and to the quality of life of people who live in rural areas or visit the countryside// Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 17/07/2009 ( Reads : 646 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Agriculture, Fisheries Food Group's 'funeral' for Irish farming |
FARM CUTS: ONE FARMING group had already held a mock funeral in Raphoe, Donegal yesterday marking "the death" of Irish agriculture even before the €305 million annual savings cut proposals were announced. Farmers, the only section of Irish society already out on the streets over cuts, were even more disturbed yesterday when they learned the knife could cut even deeper than they thought. The Irish Farmers' Association president Padraig Walshe said they indicated a clear collaboration between the authors of the report and the Department of Agriculture. // Read More // |  |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 17/07/2009 ( Reads : 633 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Closure of Reps to hit farmers |
A DECISION by the Government to close an environmental farming scheme to new applicants will affect up to 34,000 farmers, Opposition parties have said. Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith announced this week that the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (Reps) would be closed to new entrants and to those completing five-year contracts. The scheme has 62,000 members and was worth €8,550 on average to farmers. It rewarded farmers for environmentally friendly farming and resulted in payments of €3 billion // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 11/07/2009 ( Reads : 675 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Minister lashes out at anti-GM protesters |
British environment secretary Hilary Benn has described anti-GM campaigners as a “source of real frustration”. Campaigners are preventing trials going ahead on the safety of growing genetically engineered crops. Mr Benn said that in the face of the “maelstrom of concern and fear” about GM crops it was important to gather evidence on their environmental impacts through field trials of plants. But the only GM crop trial in Britain which he had approved – at the University of Leeds – had been trashed in a matter of months.
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| Posted By Peter McCloskey on 18/05/2009 ( Reads : 738 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Livestock levy is dead in the water |
'Cow tax' idea dismissed as nothing more than a load of hot air IF YOU want to get ahead in politics, don't mess with the farm lobby. That is the golden rule that Taoiseach Brian Cowen broke last May when he prevaricated over whether to give the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) a cast-iron guarantee he would veto any unfavourable World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal. The result was thousands of farmers standing in front of Leinster House waving "Stop Mandelson's WTO sell-out" placards and a resounding No vote in the first Lisbon Treaty referendum from rural constituencies. So when I obtained a stack of memos and reports from the Department of Environment last week under the Freedom of Information Act, I was intrigued to read that an adviser to Minister for Environment John Gormley had recommended the introduction of a livestock levy. Such a levy, colloquially known as a "cow tax", could be imposed on farmers or end consumers of beef and dairy products to raise money to deal with the greenhouse gases produced by livestock when they burp and fart after eating grass. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 29/03/2009 ( Reads : 765 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Low income farmers ‘facing extinction' |
LOW income farmers are on the brink of extinction and the industry is set to reach crisis point in the immediate future, a rural development officer has warned. Brian Lyons, smallholder development worker with West Offaly Partnership, said small farmers are living just above the poverty line and are simply "guardians of the land". He said many, with families are, are trying to survive on very low incomes - €15,000 a year or less, and supplements such as farm assist and EU subsistence, were keeping them off the poverty line. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Tony Lowes on 03/03/2009 ( Reads : 822 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
| Trust frees land for allotments |
| It wasn't that long ago that "allotment gardening" was almost a synonym for "unfashionable". It was something that people did when they were too old to have anything interesting to do with their summer evenings, before going home to put their slippers on and have a cup of cocoa. But, spurred on by Jamie, Gordon, Hugh and the rest of the TV cheferati, and combined with concerns about climate change and sustainability, there has been a dramatically increased interest in growing your own. Up and down the country, old allotment hands are pestered for advice, as yummy mummies and other urban trendies rediscover the joys of peas fresh from the pod and just-dug potatoes. // Read More // | |
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| Posted By Peter McCloskey on 23/02/2009 ( Reads : 743 ) | Comments (0) | Farming & CAP |
