what are you doing to prepare your farm for climate change?

Hoping for a drier, warmer climate myself - though I may be biased (North Mayo!!)

Looking at all teh planes crossing here this morning, I've decided to loook after the environment when every one else does.

Heavy land here so a little drought wouldnt do any harm

Are you asking what are we doing to alleviate climate change OR what are we doing to prepare for the changes when they come?

I have build a large shed and filled it with fertlizer last year so that the rules will not effect me for my lifetime ( around 60 years of age). I intend cutting all hedges to the bone this autumn and every Autumn from now on until they stop me, then I will have 2-3 years before I have a hedge problem.

I have put in a large oil storage tank filled it two years ago when the price was cheap. I have sprayed every weed in the fields and on the ditches. I stockpiled weed killer 5+ years ago and now buy a yearly allowance.

I have a big tractor and a slurry tanker. The tractor has an infra red system for night time spreading of slurry and fertlizer. It has extra wide tyres to get into wet areas and near drains and rivers. I have a mulcher for hedge cutting. It will shatter everything even stone.

I say I am ready for any regulations

I'm mindful of more extreme wet and dry spells, so I'm keeping more Silage than normal. Better to be looking at it than looking for it.

No offence OP, I might be wrong but I get the impression that you might be a person who "farms" as a hobby rather than to produce for sale.

It isn't viable for people to plant three-quarters of their farms with trees if they are actually trying to produce food for supply. It is different if it is only an expensive hobby and people want to grow a few things for themselves.

The importance of food supply is going to become a lot more pronounced over the next few years on a global basis

Regenerative grazing management via mob grazing.

Means that there is Always a Bank of grass as well and I find it helps keep them out later as well.

Nearly like what Wrangler has posted it can be taken too far the other way. This mantra of I'm not here to feed the world looked well five years ago but it's looking a bit selfish and an ill thought out statement now with famine looming.

There's a happy medium of farming for humus/ carbon production with less use of herbicides, pesticides, anthelmintics. Food is medicine. Isn't it better someone is eating your food produced that way than leaving food production to someone else far down the too much route.

That'd be my thinking now. Best of both. We are still paid on volume. Always will be. You have to keep both eyes on all aspects. Otherwise you'll need an off farm job and then your mindset changes dramatically.

Has the weather gotten that much hotter to date. Few good weeks the last few years but its been the same way for as long as I can remember. In fact I would have thought summers were better years ago, more settled less rain. Might not have been as effected by drought as people seemed to be stocked lighter back then. Maybe I am wrong but would have thought the bigger change has come on the winter side of things with more rain and milder conditions.

As for the shelter whilst I would be a big advocate for good hedges and good trees ,more from an aesthetics perspective than anything, I would also have fields split into paddocks with some having minimal or no shelter. Animals were as happy in these the past few years basking in the sunshine and were definitely well removed from been miserable.

Nothing the whole climate change crisis is a farce, it’s all about taxation and wealth transfer if you can’t see that by now there’s no hope for you. Have you noticed that the globalists pushing it don’t want solutions just extra tax.

In fairness to the OP he asked a simple question about how folks will prepare for the droughts or cold spells of the future. It doesn't reflect well on farming boards some of the stupid and irrelevant stuff he got back. As for climate change itself, i see Ireland as being less affected then most places. Sheer luck of geography and soil type. In contrast places like Brazil are going to be in big trouble at the rate their climate is drying out and getting hotter due to the rampant destruction of the Amazon and other habitats thanx to that nasty thug Bolsanario. Massive loss of topsoil there too. As for feeding the world, realistically we are small players in that regard, even more so given the sorry state of tillage and veg production in the country. Most famines in any case are down to wars or logistics. The Ukraine situation is an issue, not due to production, but getting the product out of the country. The breakdown of logistics around the world since Covid is also a big factor in current food inflation. Add the massive amount of food waste across the board at every stage up to the consumer and beyond, then its obvious that the situation is alot more complicated than simply flogging the land to death with chemicals etc, to produce that bit more. Our own experience of famine should have taught us that, since it was a brutal colonial land regime that caused it, while at the same time we continued to export vast amounts of grains and cattle.

You would have got a "Farmer of the Year" reward from Teagasc for that not so long ago🤣

Will you be able to operate livestock at a level that you can keep the soil covered with a foliage at all times?

As you say we're used to the vagaries of climate

We definitely shouldn't be spending money on changes, The goings on at Dublin Airport should tell us that the public isn't gonna buy into any changes.

There could be absolutely nothing done about it....... apart from extra taxes that is