Thread by @IrelandsFarmers

Morning folks. I'd like to talk about nature today, and how it's doing on our generation's watch.

The answer is unequivocal: it could scarcely be worse. Nature is rapidly blinking out all around us.

And no, that is NOT hyperbole.

All the science confirms it.

There are so many statistics I could hit you with to show how nature is being killed off, but statistics tend to wash over us, so here's just one.

In 1970-2016 alone, global populations of wild vertebrates like mammals and birds plummeted by 68%.
theguardian.com/environment/20…

There are many reasons why we're losing nature at such a catastrophic speed, but the primary one across the world is conversion of natural habitat to farmland.

When this happens, only a small minority of species are able to adapt to the new conditions.
smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/agr…

Yes, you say, but that's all happening in other parts of the world, like the Amazon or SE Asia, right?

Wrong. It's happening - or has already happened - here too.

As we saw yesterday, in Ireland natural ecosystems have been relentlessly driven out.

Wild, natural habitat has been reduced from 100% of the island of Ireland down to practically zilch.

So it really shouldn't be surprising that our countryside is so nature-poor, and getting worse.

It's very simple: wildlife can't survive without somewhere to live; a home.

The farmland that replaced natural habitat did, in the past, leave space for some wild species, but that is less and less true now. Why?

Because in order to increase production, farming has gone ever further towards chemical-soaked monocultures that offer nothing to wildlife.

But, in my view, farmers are not to blame for this. It has been pushed by official policy for decades, dictated by the industrial agriculture lobby.

Nature aside, has this drive been good for farmers themselves? No it hasn't, especially not if we think longer term.

For whole a range of reasons, the current direction is disastrous for farmers. Let's look at a few of them.

First off, viable long-term food production depends on healthy soils. Constantly drenching land in chemicals has the opposite effect, wiping out vital micro-organisms.

Further, soils which take 1,000s of years to form are being depleted at a terrifying rate. According to the @UN, at the current rate of loss, the world's soils could well be gone within 60 years.

What sort of legacy is that to be handing on to our kids? theguardian.com/environment/20…

But by far the biggest threat is
#ClimateBreakdown
Let's back up (just a little) for why...

Farming is actually a fairly new invention in the real scheme of things: 12,000 years or so ago it didn't exist. That might sound a long time, but in ecological terms it's absolutely not.

What else was happening 12,000 years ago? The world was entering into an unusually stable climatic period: the Holocene.

It's no coincidence that farming began around the same time: the one thing that farming requires, more than anything else, is a stable climate.

Try farming with years of drought, incessant rain, bonkers heat, or other effects of a destabilised climate.

In fact, exactly this has already been steadily happening in other parts of the world for decades, often making agriculture next to impossible.
bloomberg.com/news/features/…

But how does farming affect the climate? Well, it's presently one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland.

But it also replaced the natural ecosystems that absorbed vast amounts of carbon, and helped keep the climate stable in other vital ways.

But there's more: across Europe, smaller farmers have been getting out in droves.

While there will be various reasons for that, one of the main ones is that, currently, things are very much set up to favour big intensive farmers.
theguardian.com/environment/20…

For example:

33% of farm subsidies go to just 1% of farms

80% of farm subsidies go to just 20% of farms

The system is rigged against small farmers, so, as I said, they're getting out in huge numbers, leaving the field (literally) open to bigger, more industrial farmers.

For so many reasons, agriculture as it presently exists cannot go on.

It's NOT working for the vast majority of farmers, nature, the climate, or consumers, who want a vibrant, nature-filled countryside, a stable climate, and healthy, chemical-free food.

Look at Ireland below.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but one thing is sure.

Farming has no future if it blindly pushes on, ignoring all the countless warning lights flashing red all around us.

It's time to stop always just taking, and start giving back to nature. wwf.eu/?346735/Scient…

Tomorrow should be a bit more upbeat, with some thoughts on one of the essential solutions to the death of nature in Ireland.

Hope you can join me!