Kildare pig farmer to feature on RTÉ's Ear To The Ground

Kildare pig farmer Roy Gallie will feature on his week's on Ear To The Ground. It will be shown on RTÉ One on Thursday February 16 at 7pm, Repeated Sunday, 1.10pm.

The last 18 months have been cited as the toughest in a generation for pig farmers. Global events caused spiking energy and feed costs while at the same time pig prices were slow to catch-up. According to Teagcasc the average Irish pig farm has made losses of 600,000 over that period. Helen Carroll visits pig farmer Roy Gallie in Kildare to find out how the global market impacts his enterprise & what needs to happen to get the sector back on its feet.

One of other topics that will be covered is land prices. Prices for renting, leasing and buying farmland in Ireland are reaching historic levels, for many reasons - expansion in the dairy sector, investment opportunities and scarcity of supply. For some farmers who have been in rental agreements for years, the future is now uncertain. Darragh Mc Cullough meets one farmer in Kilkenny adapting how he runs his enterprise to cope with the uncertainty.

In addition to this, Ella Mc Sweeney spent the day with Wicklow dairy farmer John Kelly, to get his opinions on how he sees the sector changing in the future. Last year the government announced that it was committing to a 25% cut in emissions from agriculture by 2030. The dairy sector is coming under increasing pressure when it comes to how it will both tackle climate change, while maintaining farmers' livelihoods.