April – forecasting, farms and forestry

Yesterday my husband and I attended a Meteorological Conference at the Royal Dublin Society. As well as Irish Met Office speakers we heard from Mike Brennan, from the US National Hurricane Center in Miami, and NOAA. Interested parties from around the world attended.

We saw a lot of charts of the North Atlantic as tropical storms, sub-tropical storms and hurricanes were discussed, specifically the 2017 - 18 storms.

Eoin Moran, director of Met Eireann, said "Climate change and extreme weather is one of the greatest challenges facing our society. No one country, no one region, is alone capable of providing the forecasting we provide today."

When we got home we saw the conference had made the main evening news, with several minutes of coverage and interviews.


Snow fell twice during March in Dublin, enough to cause postponement of a book launch at Easons bookshop – Peadar Ó Guilín’s new work The Invasion.
Heavy rainfall then added to the waterlogging of fields, a hot topic at the Royal Dublin Society’s annual Forestry and Farm Awards which I attended at the start of April. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine addressed the audience and helped to present the prizes. He encouraged farmers to plant trees on marginal or difficult land, with the aim of contributing to Ireland’s tackling of climate change. An increased grant is given for broadleaves, and the department is aiming for 30% broadleaf cover with varying age forestry, as this increases biodiversity. Schemes such as Forestry to Fibre make use of native wood and thinnings as biofuel, and the schemes should enhance farm returns and reward good management.

Bernie Brennan, President of the RDS, continued the theme in her address, explaining that awards are given not just for good livestock management but for carbon footprint, high environmental standards and sustainability. Teagasc, the state agriculture advisory board, partners with the RDS. Today’s awards were for cattle, in Beef herd and Dairy herd divisions. All the extremely impressive cattle shown on screen were grazed outdoors. They were from the majority breeds in Ireland; Friesian, Limousin, Angus, Charolais and Hereford. I was delighted to see that farm families were involved in most cases, and a whole family of five might come up to the podium to receive their trophy and cheque. If young people can see a future on the land they are more likely to stay on the farm.

Woodturner Seamus Cassidy made the beautiful trophies for the Forestry section. In Community Woodlands, Ballyhaise College, Co. Cavan was second and Colin Glen, Co Down was the winner. This venue, complete with a Gruffalo trail, gets 1000 visitors a day and is on the edge of Belfast.

In Multipurpose Forestry, second was Hilton Park in Co. Monaghan with mixed woodlands since 1752. This forest has sustainable income, diverse woodlands and natural regeneration. All best environmental guidelines have been exceeded for 200 years. First place was Curraghchase Forest Park in Co Limerick. Coillte, the state-owned commercial forester, is restoring native woodlands; and a man made lake on this former estate provides a haven for wildlife and activities for the public. The farm has been in the family for eight generations and is in production forestry.

Teagasc favours the Farm Forest award as finding and praising excellence, both in climate change mitigation and as a sustainable and attractive enterprise for addition to farms. Thomas Duffy, second place, said “The trees give shelter to my livestock and it looks well in the countryside.” First-placed Andrew O’Carroll from Kilkenny said “Forestry gives long term income security for my family.” He explained that he had planted poor, higher ground and with a grant assured for twenty years, he rented better grazing land on a long-term lease, improving his dairy returns.

Older farmers I spoke to praised the rewarding of hard work and family dedication. Younger farmers were interested in the right kind of trees for wet land, which would be safe near livestock, to grow quickly for biofuel and combine with solar and wind power.

I’ve been enjoying my course in Journalism at Dublin Business School. We were asked to write a report on the changes in modern media, jointly. This was done using Google Drive which enabled us to share a document and each access it from our own locations. Three of us worked together and each researched different aspects, such as past and present media, global adoption and censorship, business usage. Finally, I searched for and inserted suitable photos and checked references.

When we had submitted our report, we next needed to prepare a set of slides – like Powerpoint – and give the presentation in class. Again, we shared the document on Google Drive and contributed remotely. A team member provided a screenshot about buying Facebook ads for a site, and explained the resulting increased traffic. Advertisers can now speak directly to customers, targeting specific types, and do not need to go to a newspaper or television station for an expensive broadly spread ad. This has serious implications for the funding of journalism in the future. We learned a great deal about the contents of our report / presentation and the techniques involved.

Being self-employed means I often miss out on aspects of modern life which office workers take for granted. Google and Microsoft appear to be chasing customers by simplifying and streamlining their products. There are plenty of added techniques, bells and whistles which can be used, but it’s possible to prepare presentable work with just the basics. If any mature person gets a chance to update their IT skills I believe they should take it, as the digital world is moving very fast.

This month I am making Dining Out With The Gas Giants free to download on Kindle. This follows an Irish journalist exploring a London of the future, with a diversion to South America. Grab it from 19th – 22nd April, and if you enjoy the read, please leave a review to help other readers.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dining-Giant...

https://amazon.com/Dining-Giants-Arou...

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