The first of their kind in Northern Ireland, these guidelines offer a comprehensive roadmap for nature-friendly farming practices within the dairy industry.
This is the first time that RSPB NI has worked with the dairy sector in Northern Ireland in a formal partnership, undertaking a series of farming workshops and testing on five representative dairy farms to outline a comprehensive menu of practical measures which can be taken to support nature positive farming.
Project in collaboration with the Dairy Council for Northern Ireland and its member organisations Dale Farm, Lakeland Dairies and Leprino Foods and the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN).
This is the first time that RSPB NI has worked with the dairy sector in Northern Ireland in a formal partnership, undertaking a series of farming workshops and testing on five representative dairy farms to outline a comprehensive menu of practical measures which can be taken to support nature positive farming.
Project in collaboration with the Dairy Council for Northern Ireland and its member organisations Dale Farm, Lakeland Dairies and Leprino Foods and the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN).
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:07 Through our Nature Positive Dairy project at RSBB, we've been working in partnership
00:11 with the Dairy Council and their processors to look at how we can restore nature on dairy
00:15 farms in Northern Ireland.
00:16 We've been working with the processors and some of their farmers to look at what options
00:21 there are to embed nature on their farms.
00:23 There's been two phases to the project.
00:25 First of all, we've been developing a best practice guide for farmers called Nature Positive
00:30 Dairy Farming, and it sets out the options for restoring nature on dairy farms.
00:34 So a dairy farmer can understand what he or she can do.
00:38 And we've also been undertaking a number of assessments of five different farms in Northern
00:42 Ireland, doing an opportunity map to see where the opportunities are to embed nature on those
00:48 farms.
00:49 So we've been working on this just over the last year or so.
00:52 A number of farmers have had their biodiversity surveyed as part of the whole project, really
00:58 to look at what they're doing in terms of their hedgerows in particular, but also other
01:03 biodiversity measures on their farms.
01:04 So really pleased to see that the outworkings of this now come into fruition, that the farmers
01:10 themselves involved have been very positively exposed to what they're doing.
01:13 Some of them didn't realise just even in terms of what they're doing in terms of biodiversity
01:16 and the positive work they're doing.
01:18 So hopefully I say this guide really provides a series of options for farmers to consider
01:23 in their own farms going forward, how they can improve their biodiversity and certainly
01:28 improve wildlife and the nature.
01:33 The intention is that this kind of work could then be undertaken on the farm to scale up
01:37 nature restoration across the farm landscape, particularly the intensively farmed landscape
01:41 where much of our nature has been lost.
01:43 [Music]