SmartAgriHubs: pilot incorporation of farmland habitats in Teagasc National Farm Survey

Teagasc is investigating how to incorporate biodiversity into ~300 participant farms in the Teagasc National Farm Survey. This is being piloted as part of the EU SmartAgriHubs project, which focuses on digital innovation in the agrifood sector. Here, I briefly describe why biodiversity should be included in sustainability assessment, the aims of the pilot project and our methodology, and its potential contribution to improving biodiversity monitoring in farmland.

Report: Independent evaluation of environmental effects of GLAS

The Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) has been the Agri-Environment Scheme in Ireland over the RDP period 2014-2020. GLAS. A report from summer 2020 provides an evaluation of GLAS by an independent environmental consultancy. The report is available on the DAFM website here: Evaluation of the Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS): Synthesis of evidence, and includes an Executive Summary and list of recommendations in addition to the main report. 

Methodology to include farmland habitats in sustainability assessments

A new Teagasc publication to be published in the Irish Journal of Agricultural and Food Research outlines the development of scalable methods to include farmland habitats in sustainability assessments. Here, I give a brief 'taster' of the content of that paper, and an overview of the approach that is based on categorising farmland habitats using satellite imagery.