Tonight’s episode of Ear to the Ground features a segment on lambing 2021, including a farmer with a 1,000 ewes, a bog slide and an Aussie woman’s venture into egg farming in Co. Tipperary.
Bog slide
Over the last number of decades, Ireland’s upland mountain areas and boglands have been used for projects such as forestry plantations and wind turbine farms, as the land is seen as having very little value.
But if left alone, boglands have enormous value when it comes to carbon capture. Ella McSweeney travelled to Donegal where a bog-burst in November 2020 had a huge impact on the local environment,
and community. Ella speaks to experts about how these lands are being used, and asks if there are better ways, we can manage them.
Spring lambing
The arrival of spring symbolises a very busy time for Ireland’s 34,000 sheep farmers. Darragh McCullough lends a hand to Erica O’Keeffe and her 100 expectant ewes in Tipperary. Erica hopes to welcome around 150 lambs onto the farm this season.
Meanwhile, in Kilkenny, farmer, Brian Nicholson, shows Darragh around his lambing shed as he prepares for a round-the-clock operation to manage his flock of 1,000 ewes.
Magners Eggs
When Aussie, Kylie Magner, came to Ireland on a working holiday visa, she didn’t expect to stay beyond 6 months. But 20 years later, Kylie now runs her own organic egg farm near Fethard in Tipperary with her husband and four children.
Having grown up on a farm, Kylie was always passionate about sustainable farming and felt a longing to return to the land. Helen Carroll visited Magner’s farm last summer to see their 800 busy hens at work.
More information
Tune into programme fifteen at 7pm tonight (Thursday, February 11th, 2021) on RTÉ 1.
Derek Ryan, a fourth-generation vegetable farmer in north, Co. Dublin featured in last week’s episode with ET specialist, Dáire Markham.
Darragh McCullough travelled to Galway where he met a man whose life began in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. He was later fostered by a farm family at the age of six.
