Gary Patterson

But generally I'll try to move them on every day.

We have 11 bullocks at the minute and they'll get maybe anywhere from an acre, half an acre.

They'll graze that area quite well, quite intensely.

They'll pare it down quite low and then they'll move on to the next section.

Yeah, a huge part of what I'm trying to do is to work with the soil.

We're trying to produce nutrient-dense food and what I've kind of learned is that through spreading chemical fertilisers and even slurry to an extent, we've altered the soils that my great-grandparents and back the way would have been working with.

And what it has changed is the...

the fungal and the bacterial balance in the soil.

So when there's fungus and bacteria in the soil, the nutrients can come up into whatever is growing there.

But because we've spread chemical fertilizers a lot, the fungal dominance in the soil has gone way down.

So there's more bacteria.

The ground is needing more fertilizer every year, as we can see.

So I see this as being a way to, number one, save money on fertilizer, and number two, look after the soil and in turn the waterways as well.

Yeah, so it's really interesting to me, you know, in the past, a farmer might have provided for 10 kids from the farm alone.

And now, as you say, most farmers are working off farm, like we saw from the protests last week and the price of fuel, the price of fertilizer, everything that like, yeah, farmers are struggling to make a living.

It's quite a stressful occupation at the minute and Ireland at the minute is quite stressful.

So the breathwork can help with becoming more present,

being able to stop worrying about things as much and to de-stress and yeah I find that people aren't sure no more than the agroforestry people aren't sure like what is this breathwork about but yeah everybody who's come to try it has got something from it and enjoyed it and yeah like that if we can release a little bit of stress and be a bit more present I think it helps with everything in life.

Yeah, yeah.

I think, again, like obviously just thinking about my grandfather, great-grandfather, the people who farmed this land before us, they didn't have, you know, the iPhones, they didn't have the stresses and the worries.