A scientific study of the hill-farming community on the Iveragh community in Kerry indicates that if we lose our farmers, we could also lose the natural and cultural heritage
THE PEOPLE, the landscape and the ecology of the the Kerry uplands of the Iveragh Peninsula face enormous challenges because of current policies, according to a new scientific study by researchers from University College Cork.
BioUp, funded by Science Foundation Ireland and co-ordinated by Dr Eileen O'Rourke of UCC's geography department, has been monitoring changes in the area, which has been undergoing major alterations in farming practices.
She has been examining the links between upland biodiversity, farming practices and the socio-economic forces behind land-use change in the area, and so far, according to Dr O'Rourke, they have not found evidence for large-scale abandonment of the upland.
"However, there is ample evidence of changes in the traditional farming system. Now the vast majority of the hill-farmers are combining full-time off-farm work with part-time farming," says O'Rourke.
"This in turn has led to a simplification of the farm-management system, resulting in localised over- and under-grazing. It highlighted the trend towards moving farming down-slope and concentrating the farming system around reclaimed green land, normally around the farmyard," she says.
The result of all of this is that there is less intensive use of the upland rough grazing and commonage and, while it reduces time-consuming herding up the mountains, it has major ecological implications.
"We know that if heather is left ungrazed it will dominate the hillside within a short period of time, but under moderate grazing it will contribute to a special rich mosaic of habitats," O'Rourke says.
FARMING SYSTEMS ARE not only changing, she says, but so too are the animals being farmed. The traditional Scottish Blackface sheep which grazed the mountains are being crossed with lowland breeds, leading to a softening in sheep. Going too, she says, is the use of the native rustic Kerry cows that grazed the rough grasses, bracken, gorse and hard rushes in the winter, growth which the sheep cannot control on their own.
O'Rourke says research has shown that traditional mixed cattle and sheep enterprises are the most effective in maintaining upland habitats and this has been well demonstrated in other areas.
"The re-wilding of the uplands, as well as the breakdown in the traditional management system, makes hill-walking more difficult and increases the risk of wild fires and their danger to nearby settlements and forest plantations," she says.
Looking at the farmers themselves, the study finds that of the 80 surveyed, only 19 per cent, many with no families, are fully dependent on their farms. The majority of farmers or spouses have opted for off-farm income and only 17 per cent are involved in income-generating tourism services.
THE GREATEST OBSTACLE to developing a local quality lamb label, for instance, is the lack of entrepreneurial spirit and institutional backup which would be financially rewarding for farmers who see off-farm work as an easier option, O'Reilly says. "If agrarian livelihoods cannot be maintained in the hills and valleys of the Iveragh peninsula, there will be direct knock-on effects for ecology, rural society, tourism and the leisure industry."
• The UCC BioUp team included Nadine Kramm, Roz Anderson, Dr Mark Emmerson, Prof John O'Halloron and Dr Nick Chisholm