Blurring the battle lines

Farmers and environmentalists are often depicted as diametrically opposed. The battle lines are no more clearly defined than those between intensive dairy farmers and Agri-Bogey man Eamon Ryan.

However Lorcan McCabe is one of those who smudges such battle lines with his nature-friendly approach to dairying on the eastern outskirts of Bailieborough.

Having won the National Dairy Awards’ ‘Biodiversity dairy farmer of the year’ in 2023, the Celt is intrigued that the former deputy president of the ICMSA should be at the forefront of embracing nature on his farm.

Lorcan’s Edennagully farm is on an elevated stretch where the skyline is shared between birds of prey, tree-tops and turbine blades. From this vantage point the Mourne Mountains of Down and Slieve Gullion in Armagh are easily traced to the northeast, the Tower of Lloyd in Kells to the south appears as a needle in the distance, while on a good morning, the coast at Annagassan shimmers in the distance.

As we commence a tour of his farm, I excitedly report a kestrel hovered above my car as I made my way up the lane. He’s not one bit surprised. He replicates the tremulous wing beat of the hovering kestrel, while surmising how they don’t cross territories with buzzards that dominate this southern end of his holding.

“I tell you what’s everywhere this year - foxes. Foxes! For the last 20 years you’d see one or two lads, but on this farm alone there’s probably four or five. I seen one poking in a bit of silage, and the next thing - dived in and got a vole - and that was the second one he was after getting, so he had a good day.”

It’s obvious Lorcan savours such encounters. First stop on the tour, where we are joined by his dog Elvis, is at his newly established orchard boasting 53 apple trees in a sheltered spot measuring just three quarters of an acre.

“They’re all native breeds, they’re not Granny Smiths or Pink Ladies or anything,” he says of the heritage varieties, which include five native to County Cavan.

Some he sourced from Seed Savers in County Clare, but the majority came from John Galligan from County Donegal.

“My thinking is, Donegal is further north and probably has tougher conditions, so if it grows in Donegal, it’s going to grow here.

“As well as that I have three damson trees, I have three plum trees, three pear and three yellow gage.”

Put in three years ago, the hedge bordering one end of the orchard “is doing well”. The whitethorn - “fantastic tree” - is the mainstay of the hedge and every three or four yards he has hazel, Guelder -rose or blackthorn. The only minor setback is his slow growing holly is “getting drowned” by grass and briars.

“That will be a fantastic hedge give it another three years,” he forecasts.

Lorcan had planned to set another hedge but couldn’t source whitethorn locally due to the demand sparked by the ACRES scheme. Despite the shortfall the decision by the authorities to permit the use of imported whitethorn has greatly annoyed him, as he fears it could bring in disease.

“They are saying they are regulated and have certificates - it’s bullshit,” Lorcan retorts. “You see what happened to ash, look at those trees down there,” he says pointing down the lane to some forlorn looking ash trees, denuded of leaves.

“I’ll have to cut them because in another four or five years they’ll be dangerous. [For the government] to allow that to happen is horrendous.”

Every 10 yards or so white plastic posts mark the points where he has planted trees, for example 14 sycamore in this stretch of hedge - “I just got them out of the ground,” he cheerfully reports of his sensible approach.

Elsewhere he has hazel, crab apple and wild cherry, and possibly his favourite, rowan, also known as mountain ash.

“I think they’re a beautiful tree,” he declares.

Lorcan has dedicated a hedge to each of his four children with a mix of hazel trees for his daughter Andrea, sycamore for his son Sean, crab apple and wild cherry for Laura, and a field has been fenced off ready to plant wild cherry for Shannon next year.

“They’ll each have their own,” Lorcan promises.

In the more exposed areas where the topsoil is thin and where there’s hungry hares about, he accepts that some saplings won’t survive, but he expects the vast majority will.

“They’re only a euro a piece, so if they die - I don’t like it - but I’ll replace it.”

Lorcan upped his planting regime around the field boundaries about five years ago by putting in 120 trees. Asked about the motivation for this planting frenzy he says: “You know people say the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago, but the next best time is now. I did plant a bit 10 or 12 years ago, maybe 20 trees, and I’m sorry I didn’t start it younger, that I could enjoy it.

“Look at that,” he says interrupting himself.

“That will be a beautiful mountain ash - give that five or six years,” he says of one sapling that looks like it’s had a head start on the others.

While Lorcan always appreciated trees in hedging, he suspects he heeded advice from Teagasc in dissuading him from planting more.

“I’d blame a little bit Teagasc for driving farmers into: Production! Production! Production! Every corner of your land has to be turning grass out, turning milk into the tank and they had people wound up: ‘I’m making €500 profit per acre, but Seannie’s making €520 so I’ll have to knock that ditch and do more’.

“I think it was wrong, and their model of farming has farmers more in debt, and has them busier fools - working harder, harder, harder - more cows, more everything, more production, more, more, more.”

He suspects that consumers are going to seek increasing levels of accountability when it comes to how food is produced. He takes on the stance of a hypothetical consumer: “‘Lorcan McCabe is producing milk, but he’s after knocking down 10 hedges and 100 trees to produce that so ethically, should I be buying his milk or his beef? I think we have to address that. Big time.”

He believes Irish farmers should be seen to voluntarily embrace an environmental approach to farming, rather than being coerced into it by legal obligations stemming from the EU.

“I know EU law is coming on us a bit, but I believe it’s going to come on an awful lot harder in the years to come. I think we should be addressing it first and say to Europe, and say to the consumer: ‘This is what we’re doing’. And not a greenwash; not a pretend thing. Do it properly.”

He has taken other nature-friendly steps - he has sewn close to two acres for wild bird seed cover and has dug a generous pond with a raised metal platform for ducks to nest. Nearby he has two barn owl boxes, though he has yet to see any make use of it.

Even for Lorcan however, there’s limits to this approach. Lorcan doesn’t think farmers should go too far. While he’s supportive of organic farms he contends it only a niche appeal. He insists commercial enterprises must form an essential part of ethical food production.

“If all Ireland were organic, Liffey Meats would be gone, Lakeland would be gone,” he says noting the impact on unemployment. “You are better with every farmer doing a little bit than having these perfect environments - that are doing their bit for the environment but doing nothing for production.”

It’s the centre ground that Lorcan favours. However, what counts as centre ground for Lorcan may be more green-leaning than many of his colleagues would be willing to go. For example, Lorcan - who insists he’s speaking as a farmer and not as an ICMSA representative - leaves a two metre buffer zone fenced off on the edge of fields. The wild space protects his newly planted trees from cows, but is also beneficial for pollinators and widens the corridors of nature for birds and mammals.

“They would be a little reluctant to do that,” he concedes of many of his farmer colleagues. He counters that the space is not deducted on his BISS and notes he could remove the fence after mid-August if he wants it grazed or cut without causing harm.

“It’s not getting fertiliser so it’s hungry ground. So if you are after spreading slurry, or even fertiliser, and the tail ends go into it, it will absorb it and won’t leach it into the drains. Especially if there were streams or rivers,” he says.

Even with these buffer zones, he says he hasn’t that much land out of production.

Lorcan owns 100 acres and rents a further 30, and is sending 500,000 litres of mill to the creamery every year, and is also fattening all his cows.

As such he accepts he is an intensive farmer, though he prefers the title “commercial farmer”.

He is borderline on derogation, intentionally keeping below the threshold.

“I’m doing my best to stay out of derogation because I firmly believe it is going to go. So I’m feeding my cattle a little bit less.

“I’m as close as I can be to the 170 without going into it, and I know next year I’m going to have to watch things tight to do that, so I am relatively intensive.”

While he acknowledges farmers are being rewarded for their contribution through schemes such as ACRES he would also like to see it rewarded in the price.

“The consumer and the multi-nationals of the world should be paying a premium for people farming in an environmental way.”

Where Lorcan is achieving a premium price is for his growing beef enterprise. He has a fine Longhorn bull sourced from London which sports a tussle of unruly hair, and Lorcan delights in calling him Boris.

The Longhorn is claimed to be “the oldest breed in the world” and is of particular interest to the Buitelaar Group, which has harnessed a lucrative market for their high-end produce.

“They’re not going to be sold to Tesco or Dunnes Stores. He has 40 out of the 80 Michelin Star restaurants in London - my calves are going into there.

“I’m very happy with them,” he says of the Buitelaar Group.

Another group with which Lorcan is pleased to be associated is the ICMSA. He rose to the rank of deputy president before workloads and time commitments of regular meetings in Limerick built up to an unsustainable level. He recalls one day when he “spent six hours and 30 minutes sitting in the car that day for an hour and a half meeting. I’m too old for that.”

Now resigned from the executive, but still a member and supporter he looks back fondly on his time. He left school at 14 without qualifications but worked hard in the organisation and always sought to help farmers. The work gave him the chance to meet leading politicians including all the Taoisigh from Bertie Ahern onwards.

“I think they are unfairly treated,” he says of politicians. “You can’t keep 100% of the people happy.”

Of course you can’t talk politicians in farming circles without Eamon Ryan’s name popping up.

“I believe he was a very genuine person - he was genuinely concerned about the environment and the earth and biodiversity but probably wasn’t the best at communicating his thoughts to farmers. And maybe he got farmers’ backs up unnecessarily. I do believe he was genuine, and I do believe we should have worked with him and not against him.

“He was genuinely thinking of farmers, he wasn’t against them, only it was perceived he was in some cases and that was wrong.

“He did say several times that EU policy hasn’t worked and he probably was right because farmers are working harder for the same incomes they were years ago, so he had a point and if maybe given a chance - and if he too had sat down and interacted with farmers rather to be seen to dictating to them, I think we could have worked together better.”

There’s always next time, the Celt observes, a sentiment with which Lorcan agrees.

“It shouldn’t be the green agenda against the farmers - I think the two should be embraced and it could be to the benefit of the two of us. But it has to be with moderate people on each side - you get the hardliners on each side and nothing happens - the hardline greens turn the greens against the farmers and the hardline farmers turns farmers against them and that’s not right. The voice of reason has to be in the middle.”