Workings of BRIDE Project impress Labour leader
Labour Party climate spokesperson and party leader Ivana Bacik, visited Castlelyons farmer Donal Sheehan this week along with Cork East TD, Seán Sherlock.
The purpose of the visit was to learn more about the BRIDE project and the locally-led ‘Farming with Nature’ project which focuses around sustainable farming and supporting biodiversity on farms.
The BRIDE (Biodiveristy Regeneration In a Dairying Enviornment) Project was set up to improve biodiversity in the Bride river valley area of East Cork and West Waterford and aims to design and implement a results-based approach to conserve, enhance and restore habitats in lowland intensive farmland.
Last year, the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) and Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) allocated some €110,000 to the locally-led ‘ Farming with Nature’ project which, by using the successes and learnings of the BRIDE project, to create an online platform supporting biodiversity on farms.
‘Farming with Nature’ aims to create a world recognised Irish Biodiversity brand that brings a premium price to the farmers and aims to obtain accreditation for a standard that cored biodiversity on Irish farms via this platform.
The project is led by an operational group consisting of Castlelyons local Sinead Treanor, Teagasc, Kepak, Bord Bia, local dairy farmer Donal Sheehan (Castlelyons) and Sinead Hickey of the BRIDE project.
INCENTIVE FOR CHANGE
Speaking on Monday, Mr Sheehan explained to Deputy Bacik and Deputy Sherlock the importance of farmers buying in to the project on a wider level in order to impact change.
“The whole concept of Farming with Nature is that it’s on a landscape scale. I could do everything here, but if my neighbour isn’t doing the same, there’s no impact,” he said.
He noted that when the BRIDE Project was initially set up, the call went out to farmers in the Bride Valley, from Glenville to Tallow and there was major interest shown with over 120 farmers showing up to an initial meeting.
Currently, there are 42 farms on board with the initiative which sees results-based payments issued to farmers who make the effort to improve biodiversity on their land.
“Most farmers, and I was the same way myself, want to use every square inch of land and it’s very hard to change that mindset. Some might call it (hedgerows, field margins etc.) wasteland, but that land has a value and we want to put that value on it.
“Until some incentive is there, habitats are going to keep disappearing fast. The BRIDE Project finishes in 2023 and once that is finished, there’s no incentive,” Mr Sheehan added.
FUTURE GENERATIONS
Deputy Bacik said that she was ‘delighted’ to visit Mr Sheehan’s farm in Castlelyons to learn more about the BRIDE Project and Farming with Nature.
“I was delighted to come here today with our local TD Deputy Sean Sherlock to learn from Donal Sheehan and his great team here in the BRIDE Project about what they are doing to ensure more sustainable methods of farming, what they are doing to ensure biodiversity and to see the wonderful work they are doing in incentivising 42 local farmers to get involved in the project and maintain 10% of their land for nature,” Deputy Bacik said.
“I am absolutely passionate about rolling out this sort of project and projects like Burren Life in the Burren as well. These projects are so vitally important to ensure we see the sort of reductions in emissions made from agricultural sector but also we need to ensure that our country remains beautiful, that our nature and our countrysides remain beautifully flourishing with the sort of species that we’ve always had.
“We’ve just been talking about how sad it is that the corncrake and the curlew are gone from here, and the cuckoo, but we need to ensure that species are returning to these habitats and that we’re preserving them for future generations. I think the work that Donal and the team here are doing is magnificent,” Deputy Bacik added.
SCALING UP
According to Cork East TD Seán Sherlock, a ‘carrot on the stick’ approach is needed to ensure the sustainability of agriculture and climate action and a project such as the BRIDE Project should be a model for the rest of the country.
“The BRIDE Project is a really strong project that is local to my area, and I’ve been on to Ivana even before she became leader to come down and see this project and I’m glad we came here today because I think we have learned a lot about how you can bring 42 farmers on board who are so diverse in terms of what they are producing themselves.
“If they can create a model here that meets climate action, that actually gives money to farmers for doing good environmental projects, then I think that is a model perhaps that we could scale up and scale out for the rest of the country,” Deputy Sherlock said.
Deputy Sherlock supported the idea of incentivising sustainable farming and biodiversity in agriculture, stating: “why not make more incentives for more farmers to do and give them money to create environmental good and do simple things to their land that they would be well able to do anyway without affecting their bottom line in terms of what they make and create, incentives and schemes to facilitate greater climate action measures and more biodiversity”.
“We all need more biodiversity, we need to see the species coming back into our landscape again and the Bride Project is a great project and a great example of how that is being done. If we can scale that up and scale that out, then we will have a very successful Irish model of agriculture,” he added.