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Ireland | Lessons from the “Poor Man’s Cow”

January 30, 2026 Shane Casey

We are back with Shane Casey in The Burren, Ireland, where lambing season is in full swing. Shane has been busy with the next generation on and off the farm too, visiting schools with a herd of Old Irish Goats. Once a common sight in the Irish countryside, this rare native breed is helping to revive a cultural heritage that has lessons to teach us today, on biodiversity, wildfire management, and the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next. Over to Shane in the lambing shed. […]

Ireland | Feeding Ourselves, breaking new ground for the local food movement

December 19, 2025 Oliver Moore

Every year the Feeding Ourselves movement joins more of the dots in the local food ecosystem. This year especially it has broken new ground – digging into Ireland’s difficult colonial past and building bridges to a more resilient future by consolidating ties with unlikely partners and anchor institutions. To give us a taste of where the movement is at, Oliver Moore reports from Ireland. […]

Why Is the Local Food Economy in Ireland So Weak?

October 21, 2025 Oliver Moore

Ireland’s weak local food economy is not simply a modern oversight or the result of consumer preferences. Instead, it is deeply rooted in historical and structural forces—chief among them, colonial extractivism. The foundations for this vulnerability were laid centuries ago, and they have laid down tramlines of extractivism which still operate today. Analysis by Oliver Moore. […]

Letter From The Farm | Community Farming in Ireland

April 25, 2025 Oliver Moore

On Cloughjordan Community Farm it takes a village to grow 50 sorts of vegetables. The member-owned farm produces high quality, nutritionally dense veggies using agroecological methods. Community is central to the farm’s work, from its CSA scheme to volunteering, and most recently a big effort to plant 2,000 trees for syntropic farming. Letter from the farm by Oliver Moore. […]

Letter From The Farm | The West of Ireland Never ‘Dewilded’

December 20, 2024 Martino Newcombe

Martino Newcombe runs a small farm in Co. Galway in the west of Ireland. Biodiversity is a central focus of his work. He practices conservation grazing on marshy terrain with Kerry cattle, a hardy ancient Irish dairy breed. In his stewardship of the land he is careful to heed the inherent understanding of deep ecology passed down from previous generations. In this first letter from his farm, Martino explains that you don’t have to be a cow to tell milk from cream. […]

The Case for a Land Observatory in Ireland

May 1, 2024 Daniel Long

Quite quickly, Ireland has seen the kind of land concentration more familiar in other parts of Europe. Various pressures are coming to bare on access to land, including the desires of the very wealthy to build up an asset bank. Daniel Long is a young dairy farmer from south Tipperary, which has seen hugely inflated prices paid by billionaires for land. What impact does this have, including on how young people and their future in farming? Long also outlines the beginnings of a campaign to draw attention to this issue, while making the case for a Land Observatory in Ireland. […]

Feeding Ourselves 2024 – Unpacking Protest, Agroecology and Local Food Economies in Ireland

March 1, 2024 ARC

From March 21st – 24th, Feeding Ourselves is an opportunity for people and organisations working to strengthen local food economies and build a movement for agroecology, food sovereignty and rural resilience to convene and collaborate. […]

Post-Brexit Farm Policy – Outlook Across Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

March 9, 2023 Ursula Billington

What’s on the cards for farm policy in the UK nations post-Brexit and post-CAP? In the first part of this series, Ursula Billington reported on the state of play for England’s small-scale farmers and horticulturists. In Part 2, she talks to representatives from the Landworkers Alliance in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to gauge the situation in the devolved nations. […]

Part 4 | Ireland, Food Security & Feed(ing the World) – Ireland’s own food security

July 27, 2022 ARC

In the final of his four part series, Stuart Meikle considers what Ireland could produce for local on-island consumption. Infrastructure, climate, consumer sentiment all play a part. […]

Ireland | Intensive Farms Must Pull their Weight for a Just Transition

July 26, 2022 ARC

Not all agri-sectors have the same impact. As the debate in Ireland over greenhouse gas emissions cuts for economic sectors intensifies, who is thinking about the fair share within sectors? Here we republish an article from Rural Ireland on the Move, our report from April this year. In it, Fintan Kelly – agriculture and land use policy and advocacy officer with the Irish Environmental Network – examines the idea of a fair share on emissions within agriculture. […]

Part 3 | Ireland, Food Security & Feed(ing the World) – Is Ireland Feeding Food?

July 25, 2022 Stuart Meikle

A common criticism of ‘animal agriculture’ is that it uses human-grade food as a feedstock. It is also heard in Ireland, a country with a significant livestock population by European standards. To what extent is it true that animal agriculture uses human-grade food? Stuart Meikle with part 3 of his series on Ireland, Food Security and Feeding the World. […]

Part 2 | Ireland, Food Security & Feed(ing the World) – Ireland and the Archipelago

July 14, 2022 Stuart Meikle

Part two of four from Stuart Meikle on Ireland, food security and feed(ing) the world delves into the relationship Britain and Ireland have with each other – the two main islands of the archipelago referred to in the article’s title. Part one (see below) focused on Ireland, food security and nitrogen supply. Here, trade, animal feed, meats, durable forms of diary all feature. […]

Ireland, Food Security & Feed(ing the World) – part 1

July 5, 2022 Stuart Meikle

In these challenging times ‘food security’ has returned to the agenda in what was assumed to be the well-fed countries of the World. That includes in Ireland, even though it is ranked first in the Economist’s Global Food Security Index. To inform this debate ARC2020 will present an article series – an extended op-ed – from Stuart Meikle. […]

Diversification in Rural Ireland – event report

May 12, 2022 ARC

With many farms specialising, mixed farming in Ireland is now at only 3%. This compares to an EU average of 21%. Such specialisation has made Ireland vulnerable to global events as it relies heavily on feed and fertilizer imports for an export driven agri-food sector. Meanwhile, there has been a deterioration of ecosystems and a failure to reach climate targets. So what level of agri-food diversification is possible – and desirable – in Ireland? […]

Just Transition in Ireland – Next Steps

May 5, 2022 Matteo Metta

What’s really involved in a genuinely just transition? Here we summarise the perspectives of wide range of actors from agriculture, energy, forestry and rural areas gathered to exchange views on the meaning and practical application of a just transition in a farming, food and rural context in Ireland. Event held in the WeCreate Centre in Cloughjordan ecovillage. With Matteo Metta and Oliver Moore. […]