Research needed for upland farming

DEAR EDITOR,

Like other intensive lowland farmers in east Donegal, I welcome the €12m investment in the Padraig Walshe centre for grassland research at Moorepark, which will continue to produce useful research for farmers like me.

We intensive farmers should be justly proud that, since 1988, Teagasc has led the world of agricultural research, publishing several thousand excellent articles in that time on intensive livestock production and has prioritised us real farmers.

I thus defend Teagasc and take issue with the unjustified campaign in last week’s Irish Farmers Journal looking for uplands research.

It’s clear the Teagasc charter does not apply to uplands cattle research, so such lobbying is misguided.

Otherwise Teagasc would have devoted more than zero euro to upland cattle research out of the tens of millions of research funding spent over the past 37 years on intensive agriculture, or would have published one or more peer-reviewed papers on uplands cattle production in 37 years.

The Agriculture (research training and advice) Act of 1988 sets out at section 4(1)C the function of Teagasc to “undertake agricultural research” and at section 4(1)B to “make available to the agricultural industry the scientific information required by it”.

How can upland farmers consider themselves part of the agricultural industry or require scientific information?

The uplands only constitute over 20% of our agricultural area and upland farmers are gasping to survive, abandoning farms in their droves and facing a future of the NPWS converting their farms into one big national park to be grazed by red deer.

They don’t need scientific information as to how “no fence” collar technology, drones or interval concentrate feeding for outwintered cattle might keep the farmers grazing cattle on our hills and mountains. They need rather to learn patience and their place in the world. The research will come.

It’s over 10 years since I first asked Teagasc to do one research project relevant to upland cattle production and I’m confident from regular assurances that some year in their next 37 years of research it will happen.