Overpopulation

Ok Brits bad. Irish gud. We love nature.

You said nearly all the forests were gone and the Brits finished them off.

Fair enough, it's just the narrative that the pesky brits are the reason we have no trees. There's far more to it than that and forests have been cleared here for a long long time. I find blaming the Brits a bit lazy. And it's not like we've reforested since they've left. In fact, England is like the Amazon compared to here, so much more natural forest around the place.

The forests aren't coming back to where they were. You need space for all the humans, their dwellings and workplaces.

Well to be fair - the people of Ireland only started to regain ownership of land in the 1880s with the introduction of legislation under the Land Acts.

Up to then approx 97% of all land in Ireland was owned by Landlords - many who were british or absentee or both.

Tenants of small plots of land with no security of tenure or fixity of rent were unlikely to invest in planting woodlands when feeding their families was often a challenge.

I think Theobald WolfeTone at the end of eighteenth expressed something similar when asked about Irish peasants planting orchards

"he who can barely find potatoes for his family is little solicitous about apples; he whose constant beverage is water dreams neither of cider or meade"

In the 1880s tree cover was estimated to have been as low as 1%. In a little over a 100 years that has risen to 11%. And yes I agree there's still room for improvement there.

Looks like we're at the top of the list again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

True. I have extended family who've been involved in the horticultural sector here for near nearly three generations.

Unfortunately it's a sector where the topography, soil and climate of Ireland often combine to makes a lot of production marginal at best.

Currently other countries can out compete us with regard to the growing of many fruits and vegetables. Yes we could grow more with the use of covered and heated production facilities but again the margin of cost against return in the face of cheap vegetables coming from countries like Spain means that is unlikely to happen in the short term.

Areas of existing horticultural enterprises such as the North of Dublin do ok because of three main factors viz: proximity to market, extensive areas of light sandy well drained soils and more suitable local climate conditions for vegetable growing compared to other areas such as the west Ireland.

On the flip side most conditions in Ireland are excellent for grass growing and hence our main agricultural exports are dairy and beef and with a lot of that going to our trading partners in Europe.

Thank heavens for factory farms, GMO's and Roundup!

Market demand changes over time, too. I'm sure 3 generations ago your family probably grew many different flowers than the majority that are available today. And I'm pretty confident they grow the same ones as those 'back in the day.' (their descendants, anyway.)

Likewise, should citrus from Spain become prohibitively expensive due to the energy cost or that the land is no longer available, we'll switch to something else. I find it surprising more berries aren't grown in Ireland like blueberries, you'd think we'd have ideal climate for them.

And, you can get a lot of Vitamin C from potatoes :)

Seventh Day Adventists are "mostly" vegetarian and eat a diet rich in nuts and vegetables, no drinking or smoking, and have good health outcomes. I think your last point is that beef is just more popular in culture but we'd be better off not eating it at all.