Progress Report 2020 - 2021

Page 14

2020 - 2021

IRD DUHALLOW | PROGRESS REPORT

Duhallow Farming for Blue Dot Catchments Projects The Duhallow Farming for Blue Dot Catchments EIP Project is a €1.47 million Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine funded results based AgriEnvironmental programme aimed A pond installed on a project farm showing natural revegetation shortly after installation, and at rewarding farmers one year after installation for the protection, enhancement and restoration of waterbodies in the Allow River Catchment. The catchment has several high status objectives waterbodies located in the Blackwater River Special Area of Conservation. This year saw the project complete year two of the proposed five-year project term and payments issued to project participants for the first time. 82 applicants were successful with entry into the project. 68 participants had farm surveys conducted from June – August 2020 to verify measures.

Cork Environmental Forum Sustainable Agriculture Award Our project was selected by Cork Environmental Forum for the Sustainable Agriculture Award. An online event took place in December to celebrate the achievement. On the night of the event, speeches from members of IRD Duhallow were well received by the distinguished audience. Dónal Daly, former head of the EPA, spoke about the excellent innovations demonstrated by participating farmers and praised the Members of staff, Mike O’ Connor, Project project for tackling the biodiversity Scientist, Maura Walsh, CEO, Michael Morrissey, Farm Advisors with Board crisis and reducing greenhouse gas Member James O’ Keeffe accepting the emissions as well as improving water Sustainable Agriculture category award quality. from Cork Environmental Forum Stakeholder & Industry Collaborations We have collaborated with the Local Authority Waters Programme through the community water fund on a number of projects with the aim of preventing silt from entering waterbodies in the project area and wider catchment. In November 2020 the project team A farm roadway upgraded by the project to began working on a LAWPROprevent runoff from a farmyard to the River funded novel silt trapping trial. Dalua T h e goal of the trial was to test the suitability of a bespoke engineered silt trap as a silt trapping mechanism capable of reducing the sediment load entering watercourses following flood events. The EIP project in collaboration with the Local Authority Waters Programme community fund carried on a template farm roadway upgrade on a select EIP participant farm. The farm roadway was identified as a nutrient loss pathway directly to the River The project team use Dalua as a result the farm road was altered macroinvertebrate ‘indicators’ and redirected left for a fifty metre section to to determine the biological break the nutrient pathway water quality of project rivers

Project Scientist Mike O’ Connor conducting a survey on a project farm

Project Baseline Surveying Baseline surveys to map habitats and identify measures were conducted on 82 land holdings this year. The hydrology and farm land drains and connectivity to watercourses were also mapped to identify and locate nutrient flow pathways, natural seepage areas and critical source areas. Four additional surveys including a habitat survey and measure verification, a biodiversity survey of each participant farm to establish the environmental quality of riverbank vegetation structure and whether the riparian zone was biotic or abiotic, a plant identification survey which listed positive indicator species for riparian zones and finally a farm wide survey was conducted to record habitats on each participating land holding. Habitats of interest for a results based payment based on scorecards were recorded. These habitats included species rich grassland, wet grassland, semi-natural grassland, alluvial or native woodland, vegetated drain buffers, riparian scrub, wetlands/ponds, instream woody habitat and river bank riparian zones. Land drains and their connectivity to qualifying rivers in the EIP project area were mapped for the A young hawthorn tree entire holding for each participant that planted along the River submitted an Expression of Interest form to the Allow under the ‘Riparian project. The flow pathway, vegetation structure Woodland Establishment’ project measure and adjacent land use type was recorded.

Owentaraglin EIP Earlier in 2021 the government announced an open call for new EIP-Agri funded projects. Originally €1.25 million in funding had been allocated but after receiving a huge amount of interest this was upgraded to €3 million. IRD Duhallow applied for funding to add the Owentaraglin River to our existing project for a period of one year. Their application was approved and we were awarded €198,870, making this the second biggest project from the 24 successful projects that received funding under the call. The project will welcome farmers on the Owentaraglin into the project from January 2021, placing emphasis on green infrastructure measures such as pond construction and farm roadway upgrades.

Results Based Payments Following baseline surveys results based payments of €80,565 were issued to 68 project participants in 2020.

Hugh O’Connor carrying out kick sampling. Hugh completed his college placement from MTU on the project

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Duhallow Community Food Services - 25 Years

3min
page 53

Duhallow Community Food Services

4min
page 52

Afterschools

4min
page 50

Duhallow Community Laundry

3min
page 51

Duhallow Furniture Revamp

4min
page 48

Kickstart

3min
page 49

Rural Social Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

7min
pages 45-46

Tús . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

3min
page 47

Community Employment Scheme

8min
pages 43-44

Local Training Initiative

3min
page 42

Employment and Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

2min
page 41

Ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

4min
page 38

Youth and Education

7min
pages 39-40

Disability and Mental Health Community Inclusion

8min
pages 36-37

Equality for Women & Childcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3min
page 35

Community Food Initiative

8min
pages 33-34

The Saoi Network

4min
page 32

Equality and Social Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

2min
page 31

Community Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

12min
pages 23-25

LEADER in Duhallow - 30 Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22, 23

8min
pages 26-27

Tourism

4min
page 20

Culture & Heritage

8min
pages 21-22

Enterprise

4min
page 18

IRD Duhallow Skillnet

4min
page 19

Rural Regeneration Fund

4min
page 17

Manager’s Report

15min
pages 5-7

After LIFE

4min
page 16

Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 9

4min
page 12

Environment

3min
page 13

Chairperson’s Address

5min
page 4

EIP

4min
page 14

Agriculture

4min
page 15

IRD Duhallow Board Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 5

4min
page 8
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