Biodiversity - Farming and
Nature side by side
The Intertwined Love of Farming and Nature
I love farming and I also love the natural environment that is intertwined with the farm. I have seen in my lifetime how natural habitats can so easily be destroyed by humans - how modern farming methods have caused the loss of species in much of the country and the world. But I have also seen what is possible when a farmer makes a deliberate choice to do things differently.
Encouraging Biodiversity
There are many ways farmers can improve biodiversity in the countryside, and this can all be done without affecting financial profit on the farm. Farm profit can actually be increased by signing up to agri-environmental schemes such as the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES). At De Gud Farm we have been participents in GLAS and ACRES for eleven years, and the results are visible every season.
One of the most remarkable signs of what is possible came recently when a barn owl was spotted on the farm - seen here for the first time in a generation. The barn owl is one of Ireland's most beautiful and most threatened birds. Its return to De Gud Farm is a direct result of the biodiversity measures we have been building up over many years.
My Top Recommendation
There are many environmental measures on the ACRES scheme that farmers can choose to implement on their farms. My personal favourite measure is called Wild Bird Cover. We have been growing this on the farm for eleven years across two three-acre fields. In the summer the fields of wildflowers are alive with butterflies and bees. In the winter months the same fields are alive with small birds feeding on the seeds, field mice living in the undergrowth and buzzards flying overhead.
In 2026 we are adding a further 1.75 acres of new wild bird cover as part of our work as an Arable Coast Environment (ACE) EIP Demonstration Farm - bringing our total to almost eight acres. If more farmers chose to plant this well-funded and sustainable crop, it would boost farm biodiversity all over the country.
A Demonstration Farm for Nature
De Gud Farm has been selected as one of the Demonstration Farms for the Arable Coast Environment EIP - a €7 million European Innovation Partnership project co-funded by the Irish Government and the European Commission, running from 2026 to 2029. Only a handful of farms have been chosen across the entire arable coast of south Cork, Wtaerford and Wexford.
As a Demonstration Farm, we are implementing a suite of habitat measures including five-metre arable grass margins, beetle banks, skylark plots in our cereal crops, winter wild bird cover, and supplementary feeding of seed-eating birds using our own barley. From mid-2026, De Gud Farm will host farm walks for neighbouring farmers and open days for wider groups of visitors and stakeholders. This is what De Gud Farm is about - not just doing the right thing quietly, but sharing it.
A Nature Plan for De Gud Farm
In 2025, Paul Moore - a Farming For Nature Ambassador - visited De Gud Farm and prepared a formal nature plan for the holding. Paul's independent expert assessment gave us a structured framework for continuing to develop the farm's natural heritage into the future. I would highly recommend the Farming For Nature initiative to any farmer who wants to understand what they can do in their farming system to improve their land.
What We Have Planted
Over 200 native trees have been planted on the farm in recent years - including a line of 40 trees along an internal farm roadway and a grove of 80 trees in one of the farm fields. In 2026, Maria Young and volunteers from the Cork Green Spaces for Health initiative planted 60 oak saplings on the farm. A wildlife pond is planned for the stream valley on the farm, which will further enrich this already biodiverse landscape.