During the week, a major new survey was published which suggests there will be an exodus of farmers in the next few years. In a comprehensive survey of Irish farmers - with 2,300 people responding across every sector and county - one in three farmers say they will leave farming within the next five years. Della Kilroy reports.

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The survey was commissioned by Agriland and the ICMSA, and it shows it isn't only older farmers who want out. One in five farmers in their late forties and early fifties, which is young in this business, say they're likely to leave. Half of those planning to exit have no successor lined up. Yet the same survey says access to land is one of the biggest barriers for people trying to get into farming. So why aren't those leaving and those wanting in finding each other?

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Ireland's first certified Nest Protection Officer Training Programme was recently launched by Ministers Martin Heydon and Christopher O'Sullivan. It was developed by Owen Murphy and Donal Beagan of the publicly funded Breeding Waders EIP, with the training body Lantra, and supported by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture. Donal Beagan spoke about how this new qualification sets a professional standard for the first time.

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Following her victory in the EU's most prestigious organic award we visit Kay O'Sullivan at home on Glynn Organic Farm in North Cork.

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How the seas and ocean around Ireland shape our lives and could change our future.

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Countrywide Full Episode 17/10/2026

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Amanda Galvin is running an organic sheep and tillage enterprise not too far from Tullamore. She hasn’t dipped in to any of her winter fodder, her fields are notably greener than her neighbours and her ewes actually need to lose a bit of the weight they’ve put on over the summer before she puts them to the ram.

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A lot of this vision of a more "open access" Ireland might seem unachievable. But there is an example of farmers opening up access to the public and everybody getting along. The Sheepshead Way was created 30 years ago this year – securing agreement from 265 different landowners to open up all the old mass paths, holy well paths, to school through the fields paths and connect them all together into a six day hike.

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