DEAR EDITOR,

In a familiar week of bad news stories, I gave a whoop of joy when I heard that the corncrake had made a comeback. We were brought up to walk through the silage and hay fields to make sure any wildlife wouldn’t get into trouble. A potential return of the corncrake is such joyous news.

So when I went to read the article by Ray Ó’Foghlú in the 20 September edition of the Irish Farmers Journal I was left in despair and disbelief. Instead of an article celebrating the reversal of the extinction of the corncrake, it was an article bashing farming first and foremost and then rural communities who are in their own depths of despair due to an overrun of unregulated and under-regulated renewable energy projects.

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Regulated

Farming is a highly regulated industry, one that provides food security, and for the most part an industry run by people who have lived and farmed the land for generations. These are people who are highly in tune with their environment and the importance of biodiversity.

The article, while a viewpoint, concludes with a notion that large scale renewable energy “farming”, solar panels in particular are mentioned, is potentially better for the environment than agricultural farming.

I would like to see the scientific research on this. In our community we would much rather see grants and regulation to protect and increase natural biodiversity within our farmlands than this promotion of a landscape of concrete, steel, copper, aluminium and composite materials for wildlife and people to live in.