Series 27 – Overview:
This season, rural Ireland faces fundamental challenges as Brexit hits major farm enterprises like dairy, beef and mushrooms. Extreme weather events driven by climate change have an immediate impact on farmers and their fieldwork. In addition, dairy and beef farmers are under pressure to reduce their methane emissions. Changes to farm subsidies due to CAP reform could make many family farms unsustainable.
But despite all these pressures, farmers are proving resilient. They can adapt their farms to cut costs and carbon emissions, they can change their systems to promote biodiversity, and they can plant trees to mitigate climate change. Ear to the Ground tells the stories of people living and working in rural Ireland and gives urban dwellers an insight into the realities of country living.
Episode 1 Synopsis:
Ella McSweeney looks back at the long drawn out Brexit process and looks ahead to its impact on farmers, not just on the border but throughout the country. Helen Carroll reports from Cahir on the ongoing beef crisis, and hears why farmers shut down their €2billion industry this summer. Will
anything change or is the beef industry set for a terminal decline? And Darragh McCullough reflects on a great year for hay and joins the Ennis family in North County Dublin as they save fodder for a lot of unusual herbivores in Dublin Zoo.
Groundhog Day
Ear to the Ground looks back on 4 years of uncertainty surrounding Brexit and assesses the impact on Ireland’s biggest indigenous industry, agrifood. Beef, lamb, pigmeat, mushrooms, fisheries and forestry are all set to lose heavily when Britain leaves the single market. The impact will be severe. Rural Ireland faces an existential threat to its economy. Ella McSweeney reports from a border mart and asks can farmers survive in a post Brexit era?
Beef Cuts
This summer, cattle farmers closed down the €2 billion beef industry in protest against low cattle prices. But with Brexit looming and Mercosur on the horizon, is there any way Irish farmers can get a living from raising cattle? Helen Carroll reports from Cahir, Co Tipperary where militant beef farmers are ready to go back to the picket lines if they don’t see results from the latest initiatives.
Hay There
Hay is good for horses, but it’s also essential fodder for elephants. Darragh McCullough reports from North Co Dublin where the Ennis family were busy saving hay last July. Their hay has to be high quality for the animals in Dublin Zoo, so the weather at harvest is critical. A few wet days can spoil an entire crop. Haymaking dates back to the Vikings, but with Ireland’s unreliable summer weather, has given way to silage in recent years. Martin Ennis saves 140 acres of hay every year and sells it to horse owners around the country. Fortunately, the weather in July was perfect this year with fine dry windy weather ensuring a good hay harvest.