Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Ireland)

For anyone, apply.

Look up the Department of Agriculture website as well, because it's the department funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Chat to any of us, even Breda myself, you know, contact us on our social media pages.

We're happy to give you that encouragement to take that step to join.

Music Sometimes one hears something much different than expected during an interview.

On the one you are about to hear, this happened when it was revealed to me that a senior official in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine had interfered with the decision of a government minister and suggested that the minister should not seek to protect the Irish fishing industry.

This was during last December's European Union negotiations about fishing quotas, when Fisheries and Marine Minister of State Timmy Dooley wanted to oppose the move by France, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland to force the withdrawal of the long-standing protection of the Hague preferences mechanism for Ireland.

They were introduced in 1976 to counter the impact on Ireland's underdeveloped fleet of access to Irish waters by vessels of other bigger EU nations, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland.

And I think, unfortunately, it undermines everything that we've been striving to do, which is to have a committee for fisheries, have a minister for fisheries, to reset the whole relationship.

And I think that's Micheál Martin should intervene and should put an end to this.

So now, I wonder, can there be any doubt about attitude in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine towards the fishing industry? What more will happen about those letters? It's something to be watched.

Music I was aboard an unusual vessel during the past month that the fisheries dock and can sail on the Cork coastline.

Well, after focusing on beef for the start of the podcast, we do want to bring you an important update before we move on that will be relevant for dairy farmers.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has published overview reports for each of the country's 46 river catchments.

These reports will form the basis of environmental assessments, which are an important part of the EU's decision to grant Ireland's nitrates derogation.

If you want to read more about that, make sure to check out the article on the AgriLand website and app.

And they champion each other.

And every time they stand up on any occasion, they're talking about acorns and the opportunity afforded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

And in fact, this year's Ireland Ambassador for UN Year at the Wordman Farmer is an acorns lady, Carina Rosengrave of Burrview Farm.

Now, we don't take farmers per se.

It's a five-year project.

It's funded by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine, and it's in response to a dramatic decline in breeding wader populations in Ireland over the last 40 years.

So just to put that in context, curlew, for example, our best estimation is that they've declined by 97% or 98%, uh, dunlin over 90%, and even lapwing that we would, you know, foolishly think mightn't, mightn't be doing too badly have probably declined by 80%.

Uh, we have other breeding wader populations that we, we don't have baseline data on.

J- I suppose just to let people know that an EAP itself, it's a European innovation partnership.

A lot of people ask me, "What does EAP mean?" And it's, it's a model of project that's based around the concept that, uh, many heads around the table are better than one.

So instead of an ornithologist or a scientist or, uh, a farmer trying to solve a problem in an agricultural environment, collaborative conservation is the key, and so far we've, we've reached out and we've been working with Life and Machar, with Corncrake Life, with Wild Atlantic Nature, NPWS regional staff, with, uh, Department of Agriculture ACRES and ACRE-CP teams.

And I mean, everybody is, is behind the project.