cows Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Letter From The Farm | Winter Health Czech for the Herd

February 16, 2024 Terezie Daňková

We’re with Czech farmer Terezie Daňková on Hoslovice ranch in South Bohemia for a wintertime ‘Czech-in’ on animal welfare. This is the season for the cattle, sheep and hardworking horses on the ranch to take a rest. As well as feeding the animals, Terezie gives them special care in the winter months before they return to pasture. Like the animals, pastures must be carefully managed, to allow them to play a role in efforts to mitigate the climate crisis. […]

Letter From The Farm | Restoring Nature, Improving Productivity

June 23, 2023 Shane Casey

We’re back with Shane Casey in The Burren, where it’s been a good Spring. Family and farm are thriving. For Shane, nature conservation and productivity go hand in hand. As the debate rages around the EU Nature Restoration Law, he is sympathetic to the farmers who are being asked to undo a lifetime of ‘improvements’ to make space for nature. […]

Letter From The Farm | Watching, Waiting and Knowing When To Help

July 15, 2022 Shane Casey

We’re back on Shane Casey’s farm in The Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland, where he has another busy spring of lambing and calving behind him. There’s only so much you can do to prepare – after that, it’s a question of watching carefully for the telltale signs in the ewes and cows. Shane’s father was an early adopter of livestream technology that makes the night watch a little easier. But successful lambing and calving depends on the farmer’s expertise as well as patience. Knowing if and when to intervene, whether to call the vet, and how to help the newborns find their feet. […]

Czech Republic | Preparing The Ground For Agroforestry

January 28, 2022 Louise Kelleher

Louise Kelleher speaks to Czech farmer Terezie Daňková about the Kafkaesque barriers to agroforestry in the Czech Republic. Land tenure is a major issue with a disproportionate number of Czech farmers who work on the farm, compared to non-farming landowners. […]

Letter From The Farm | Calving, Lambing – and Timing

January 21, 2022 Shane Casey

We’re back on Shane Casey’s farm in Co. Clare, Ireland, where winter is an active period of herding livestock that are outwintered amidst the limestone pavements of The Burren. There’s decisions to be made about when to bring ewes inside to lamb, and cows home to calve. Considerations of animal welfare, economic viability, and conservation grazing are all factors in determining when the time is right. […]

France | Rural Resilience – All In Good Time

October 11, 2021 Louise Kelleher

What happens when a farm invites the wider community to collectively tease out its future? In September ARC2020 visited Brittany to find out. Seed savers, farm workers and chefs sat down with elected officials and representatives of regional organisations to share insights and listen to each other’s experiences. Louise Kelleher reports. […]

Romania | Making Hay In Transylvania

October 8, 2021 Paul White

In Transylvania’s hay meadows people continue to farm in harmony with nature. Determined to capture the traditional skill of scything on camera, photographer Paul White found out he would have to get up very early in the morning. Here he documents the hard work involved in a traditional haymaking process that is clean, sustainable and yields enormous benefits for biodiversity. Photo essay by Paul White. […]

Letter From The Farm | Health, Husbandry & High Quality Meat

October 1, 2021 Shane Casey

We’re back on Shane Casey’s farm in the Burren, Ireland. Here, with the harvest in full swing, lambs and weanlings are being sold. In an ideal world Shane would like his meat to be consumed locally. In reality, in rural areas like his, supply outstrips demand. Shane prides himself on the quality of his meat. Working backwards from butchery to husbandry to breeding, he shares some insights into the process. […]

Romania | Until The Cows Come Home

July 17, 2021 Paul White

In Transylvania villages, families will often own a cow or two. The day begins with neighbours taking turns to usher the cows out to the common meadows around the village, where they graze on tasty grass under the watchful eye of local herdsmen and their dogs. Come evening time the cows make their own way home for milking. Photo essay by Paul White. […]

Letter From The Farm | Welcome To The Burren

June 11, 2021 Shane Casey

Welcome to the Burren in the West of Ireland, where Shane Casey’s family have been farming Blackhead mountain for some two hundred years. Here, the unique limestone landscape requires a unique way of farming. Traditions are passed down through many generations of Burren farmers to maintain the critical symbiotic relationship between farming and conservation. In his first Letter From The Farm, Shane takes us through farming in the Burren, past and present. […]

Ireland | Wake Up and Smell the Ammonia

December 7, 2020 Alison Brogan

In Ireland, dangerous levels of ammonia emissions are driven largely by the burgeoning cattle population. Yet policymakers are turning a blind eye to the link between ammonia pollution and the expanding national herd. The evidence shows that Ireland is pursuing growth in the agri-food sector at the expense of air quality, biodiversity and human health, reports Alison Brogan. […]

Guest post : Pierre-Alain Prévost on ‘1000 Cows’

January 15, 2014 ARC

Pierre-Alain will be on stage for the demonstration this Saturday revving up the crowd. He shares a bit about his work on a recent campaign, ‘1000 Cows’, below. […]