Farm Finance: has biodiversity taken a backseat?

When the Green Low-carbon Agri-Environmental Scheme (GLAS) was first introduced in 2015, there was a major focus put on biodiversity. The scheme has nearly 50,000 participants and encompasses a large part of the agricultural land in the country.

However, in the intervening years, water quality has been a much bigger issue for Irish farmers and the Department alike, with fears that a continued decline in water quality would see the loss of Ireland’s nitrates derogation.

Worrying trend

A recent Irish Habitats and Species report looking at the habitats and species protected under the EU habitats directive was submitted to the EU and reveals a worrying trend in the deterioration in habitats.

The report states that, in Ireland, 85% of habitats are reported as being in unfavourable status, with 46% demonstrating ongoing declines.

The main drivers are agricultural practices, which negatively affect over 70% of habitats, particularly ecologically unsuitable grazing, abandonment and pollution.

The most prevalent pressure coming from agriculture is intensive grazing or overgrazing by livestock, which was reported in 55% of habitats that agriculture impacts on.

Ironically, the next biggest issue where agriculture affects habitats is undergrazing or extensive grazing, which was recorded in 21% of habitats where agriculture had an impact.

Abandonment of land also had a large effect, being noted in 19% of habitats where agriculture impacts are noted.

Overall, inappropriate grazing, either too much or too little, is recorded in 62% of habitats where agriculture has an impact.

Another key issue highlighted was agricultural activities generating diffuse pollution to surface or groundwater.

Grasslands

The report outlines that orchid-rich grasslands and hay meadows have undergone significant losses over the past 10 to 15 years, with 31% and 28% of the area monitored respectively reported as being lost.

These habitats are threatened either by intensification of farming or insufficient grazing and abandonment.

There have been some improvements in specific areas, in particular through the Burren Programme and Aran LIFE, which encourage farmers to use their traditional knowledge to restore the native grassland flora and the limestone pavement habitat.

However, in the current agri-environment schemes, the measures to date have not been successful in grassland restoration and need to be reviewed and refined.

Uplands

The report acknowledges that some habitats have been the subject of significant conservation measures in recent years, but either the time taken for recovery is too great for improvements to be detected at this stage or the measures in one area have been offset by declines elsewhere.

For example, improved management of sheep in the uplands, through the commonage framework plans, has allowed re-vegetation of many areas, but it will take years for plant communities to fully re-establish and there are still overgrazed areas.

In the meantime, some other areas are now undergrazed. Furthermore, there has been some serious damage caused by wildfires.

Support for farmers

Farmers need to be appropriately rewarded for the work they do which benefits biodiversity, soil and landscape management and water quality, Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has said.

At Monday’s informal meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Helsinki, Finland, he called for the EU’s ambitions in relation to climate action to be matched by an appropriate CAP budget.

“We are asking farmers to do more, so we need to continue to argue for a strong CAP budget to be maintained post-2020, so that they can be appropriately rewarded for the important work they do which benefits biodiversity, soil and landscape management, and water quality,” he said.