DEAR EDITOR

We took our Sunday drive from Kinlough through the scenic Dartry mountains to Carrick-on-Shannon last Sunday and did what all farmers on a busman’s holiday do: looked at both sides of the road to see what was being farmed. We saw very little!

We counted a small number of suckler herds, guesstimated we saw less than a 100 cattle in total on the 70km drive, saw no horses and probably a dozen meadows cut for silage.

Being mountain farmers ourselves, we had binoculars in the jeep and scanned the hills and mountains for sheep.

They must have all been in for an early clip for there were practically none to be seen. I drove that road 40 years ago and the hills were white with sheep and the fields black with Angus sucklers.

It is so sad that tens of thousands of hectares of good grazing land is practically abandoned with no evidence of recent drainage, lime, fertiliser or reseeding in pastures overgrown with buttercup, rushes and shrubs.

Payments

Husbandry skills are thus being lost in the absence of livestock and will be lost to future generations forever.

Are we all complacent in having EU farm payments and schemes - have there been unintended consequences of destocking the west of Ireland without considering the long-term consequences for future agricultural production?