New scheme for Aran islands similar to Burrenlife

Bodacious

I have a particular interest and love the Burrenlife scheme, I think it is a great idea and rewards farmers to getting the land cleared and going back to the natural flora and increasing biodiversity etc


Id absolutely be in support of or who should I lobby probably (IFA/ Local TD) to get a similar scheme in operation for the likes of our overgrown mountain commonages in West Galway/Connemara.


Arran islands got scheme now anyways and fair play to them

Conmaicne Mara

Bodacious wrote: »

I have a particular interest and love the Burrenlife scheme, I think it is a great idea and rewards farmers to getting the land cleared and going back to the natural flora and increasing biodiversity etc


Id absolutely be in support of or who should I lobby probably (IFA/ Local TD) to get a similar scheme in operation for the likes of our overgrown mountain commonages in West Galway/Connemara.


Arran islands got scheme now anyways and fair play to them

While all indications say the Burrenlife scheme is a popular and successful scheme, it cannot be super imposed onto Connemara as both areas are drastically different.

I am told most of the Burren is fenced, which may indicate that each parcel is privately owned?

Connemara commonages are mostly unfenced, owned by shareholders. We would use commonges at different times to when grazing might be acceptable in Burrenlife too.

Aran would be vastly more like the Burren than like Connemara.

Bodacious

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

While all indications say the Burrenlife scheme is a popular and successful scheme, it cannot be super imposed onto Connemara as both areas are drastically different.

I am told most of the Burren is fenced, which may indicate that each parcel is privately owned?

Connemara commonages are mostly unfenced, owned by shareholders. We would use commonges at different times to when grazing might be acceptable in Burrenlife too.

Aran would be vastly more like the Burren than like Connemara.

so you reckon .. no chance!


that's a pity as 220+ acres behind us of mountain completely overtaken with furze .. id love to club together with other shareholders/ farmers and together bring it back to what it was

redzerologhlen

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

While all indications say the Burrenlife scheme is a popular and successful scheme, it cannot be super imposed onto Connemara as both areas are drastically different.

I am told most of the Burren is fenced, which may indicate that each parcel is privately owned?

Connemara commonages are mostly unfenced, owned by shareholders. We would use commonges at different times to when grazing might be acceptable in Burrenlife too.

Aran would be vastly more like the Burren than like Connemara.

Don't dismiss it con. Most of the burren is privately owned and dry stone Walls are the boundrarys, very little fencing. As regards the grazing, every field on every farm is assessed and they will put in grazing recommendations for each one on the plan. You can be sure if they went to the hassle of bringing in a similar scheme in an area like Connemara that it would be designed with the grazing practices of that area in mind and not just ripped off from the burren life. The biggest problem I would see is not unfenced commonages but if a scheme was in place that not all the shareholders of a commonage would apply if a scheme was in place.

moy83

Id say the commanages would be a hoor to use a scheme like this on too .
A few people around here tried to get a hill fenced a couple of years ago between the shareholders . Talk about war . It got fenced in the end but half the share holders wouldn't pay thier piece of the cost and two brothers that wouldnt pay have it blackened with ponies since it got fenced !
Hard to get people to agree on things like this .

Conmaicne Mara

Bodacious wrote: »

so you reckon .. no chance!


that's a pity as 220+ acres behind us of mountain completely overtaken with furze .. id love to club together with other shareholders/ farmers and together bring it back to what it was

There's already been work done on two proposals and time for a third is........ ?

I fully share your views on bringing commonages back into proper condition, it benefits all shareholders. Unfortunately it's been my experience that there's 4 groups involved.

1. The "Neither you nor any Department will tell me what to do with my land" group.
2. The "Still in the headage, the more sheep the better, mindset" group.
3. The "I don't wanna rock the boat cos my neighbours above won't talk to me anymore" group.
4. The "The way things are being done is a load of shyte and needs changing" group.

The next issue is Politicing. You will have people of similar interests trying to maintain their own interests, who are fleas in the ears of farming bodies and politicians.

Good, progressive ideas which would see responsible farmers happy get trodden on to maintain the status quo from headage years which is where the large bee in my bonnet resides.

Headage probably won't have a lot to do with your hill, but you won't get a single commonage specific plan, what I am saying is other lads are looking for broader plans they can influence themselves, and that will be your problem.

redzerologhlen wrote: »

Don't dismiss it con. Most of the burren is privately owned and dry stone Walls are the boundrarys, very little fencing. As regards the grazing, every field on every farm is assessed and they will put in grazing recommendations for each one on the plan. You can be sure if they went to the hassle of bringing in a similar scheme in an area like Connemara that it would be designed with the grazing practices of that area in mind and not just ripped off from the burren life. The biggest problem I would see is not unfenced commonages but if a scheme was in place that not all the shareholders of a commonage would apply if a scheme was in place.

Twas looked at already I believe. Another difference is most (if not all?) of the grazing done in the Burren is by cattle. While the vast majority of grazing done on commonages here (particularly North of the N59 - South of the N59 is more cattle country and less uplands) is by sheep. So already there is a difference in ownership & divisions, animal type, grazing habits and not to forget land type and farming practices.

There were two agri environmental proposals put to the Hill Farming Forum in Tuam last year. I have a copy of one here if anyone wants to see it, there's plenty in it I like and some in it won't work ever, ever, ever IMO. The other was presented by the Wicklow Upland Council but I don't think that will suit us here in the West.

I had a simple plan for solving the problems on commonages in Connemara and was told I was "micro managing".

redzerologhlen

I know the most of Connemara alright, once you pass oughterard there cattle get very scarce. I wouldn't suggest for a minute that our scheme would work for ye up there, it's the way it's managed that would. 6 or 7 years ago they started with a blank canvas here, they took 20 farmers in the pilot scheme sat down with them and asked them what they wanted to do to improve the winterages and environment at the same time. They encouraged people to move away from feeding silage and to feed a small amount of meal to improve grazing. They also overruled reps by allowing certain winterages to be grazed during the summer. If you had encroaching scrub, bad water source or wanted to restore an internal boundary they will pay you to do the work. What I'm basically trying to say is it doesn't matter whether is sheep, antelope, buffalos or unicorns or whether your on the surface of the moon, in Connemara or the burren because a scheme could be designed to suit your farming practices the same way the burren life was designed to suit ours and to be honest I think ye are every bit as entitled to it as we are.

Conmaicne Mara

Don't get me wrong, I agree with a tailored scheme, but we won't get one. Because there is pressure for "broad" upland solutions, like another REPS scheme. A lot of the former cheque in the post lads are still looking for the cheque in the post, just by another name, headage, reps, whatever. There are stupid notions in it like shepherding, if one part of the commonage is undergrazed you're supposed to move them three times a week or so. Anyone who knows the first thing about hill sheep will tell you that won't work, as sheep are "hefted", they know their place, and they'll be back in an hour. The second thing with that is over disturbance of sheep on unfenced commonages, eventually that will damage the hefting instinct IMO and they will start to wander when they get too much hassle.

You can sit lads down here and the guy who's doing the damage will rant and rave he's been cut enough numbers already. The trick in that is he had huge numbers in headage, he was in it for the cheque, not the animal or what he could make from the animals offspring. You can't deal with those lads, honestly.

Its like Moy said about getting agreement, it'll only happen in a tiny minority of commonages. As much as I hate saying it, the solution will have to be imposed, not voluntary. There's a history here going back decades now of unreal mismanagement and down right theft of grazing in some cases.

PM me your email, I'll send you something to read.

redzerologhlen

Sent. It's funny but reps actually undermined a lot of good farming practices around here that the burren life have tried to reinstate. Reps set a stocking rate for winterages and would not allow you to graze them in summer. It has a lot to answer for in regards under grazing and scrub encroachment. Saying that it was handy money at the same time but it was not in sync with the area at all. None of us will be going back to the handouts like reps anyway, it's a pity some can't open their eyes and see that and lobby for what could work.

Conmaicne Mara

Oh for sure it was handy money, and agree totally with the damage it done. See this is the thing, lads are still looking for the easy money, they don't give a fig about the farming or land and that's where my issue is. I believe the problem needs to be solved, and then lads can still get environmental schemes, everyone wins that way and the land is worth something and can be used to keep animals not concentration camp victims or litter the place with bodies.

AEOS is worse than reps as you can't amend an AEOS plan and neither IFA nor Teagasc seem to want to help me change that. It's like one of Mao's 5 year plans, you must not deviate from it, even if it doesn't make sense.