A new EU initiative to try to bring life back to Ireland's depleted soil and improve the quality of food is being championed in counties Limerick, Clare and Tipperary.
The Soilcrates living lab programme is an EU scheme involving a collaborative effort among farmers in Spain, France, the Netherlands and now Ireland, to tackle Ireland's pressing agricultural and environmental challenges including soil degradation, nitrogen overuse and poor drainage.
The programme is being co-ordinated in Limerick by Ballyhoura Development, and led across the three counties by the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS).
It will bring together the practices and knowledge of 21 international project partners across Europe, where local farmer hubs, advisory services and Government agencies can discuss and implement sustainable soil management practices aimed at replenishing and bringing fresh life back into the soil.
Marian Clarke manages Doon Social Farm in Co Limerick, a 33-acre horticultural and social farm producing vegetables and eggs and also an open and diverse educational farm that children, particularly those with special or nutritional needs, and families can visit.
She is really pleased to sign up to the Soilcrates programme and it fits in firmly with her own desire to replenish the soil on their farm.
"Soil depletion is absolutely a problem for some time now, brought on by the overuse of water-soluble bagged fertiliser which may feed the plants, but ignores soil life," she said.
"You need a living soil to produce the healthy good nutrients for plants and food.
"We want to get into some form of regenerative farming with crop cover periods so that all the soil critters and micro-fauna like fungi and earthworks and micro organisms can flourish to nourish the soil.
"The Soilcrates programme is creating a community of farmers so that we can all learn from each other and that’s very powerful," Ms Clarke said.
Senior research scientist at TUS Lena Madden said the Soilcrates living labs are really dual purpose in that the knowledge and practices discussed increase the soil quality and bring farmers together as a community to co-create and engineer solutions that can be shared.
Rhiannon Laubach, who works with the community based Ballyhoura Development, said she believes Soilcrates will have a big impact on soil quality as its farmer led.
"The focus is on real world solutions. And it bridges the gap between the academics and the practical side of things among the farming community."
