Donegal farmer Peter Lynch appeared on RTE’s Ear To The Ground last night May 15th to talk about the effect of climate change on Irish agriculture.
Lynch complained that the land on his 210 acre farm was becoming consistently wetter over the years and that the soil was continuing to lose nutrients.
“The soil seems to be getting wetter all the time and it’s probably due to the amount of rain that’s falling, there is no frost in the winter time either to bust up the ground in the way it used to be done… to break it up… I would find problems with trace elements, I’m finding problems at the minute with zinc and manganese getting washed out of the soil,” said Lynch
Lynch complained that he was now forced to treat his land four to five times throughout the season in order to replace nutrients lost from run-off.
On the show Lynch was able to talk to Maynooth University Climatologist Professor Peter Thorn about the effect climate change would have on farming in the future.
Professor Thorn spoke about Ireland experiencing an excess of half a millimeter of rain on average daily. According to Thorn the excess rain would be ““consistent with the run-off of nutrients and chemicals that you want to stay on the land.”
“Donegal farmers have to change their practices to deal with the increase rain in the area such as excess drainage, and how they use the land in a way that is long-term sustainable … Everyone needs to come together to work on this problem, it’s policy, it’s technology, it’s societal behavior and yes agriculture has a big piece to play in this problem.” concluded Thorn.
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