Hannah Quinn Mulligan

Not necessarily, and that's what's kind of interesting as well.

Probably when you hear farming for nature, you kind of think that we're all a bunch of hippies, but we combine on a couple of things, and I think I wasn't the only farmer having PTSD this morning because there's an array of beautiful vintage machinery, I say that in quotes, because one of the items was an old square baler, and I don't know if anyone listening remembers those square bales of hay or straw and stacking them as a child.

There you go, you see a lot of them, and I was chatting to a conventional tillage farmer, I'm an organic dairy and beef farmer, he's a conventional tillage farmer, and we were both looking at that machine, especially on a day as hot as today, and going, oh Jesus Christ, no, please no, don't take us back there, because he'd have more, he'd have like up to 20,000 bales to stack, but I guess that's kind of the interesting thing.

But you know what, the field is clear, and you get to roll down, if it has a good hill, there was nothing like it.

But the

crack as well and actually my grandmother was talking about it and her sisters she was like the tea that was given to the men who back in that day who were like stacking bales she's like it never tasted any better and uh but the men would clear the plates they wouldn't leave any of the scones or jam for the children so if the children got any of like the scones or anything it was great

We do come from maybe different mentalities sometimes, but it is interesting what joins us.

I just came from a talk with Minister Christopher O'Sullivan.

He's obviously Minister of State, Biodiversity, National Parks and Wildlife.

There are some big questions that he's going to have to answer though.

water quality and the EPA came out again saying that water quality levels aren't where they should be and they haven't improved significantly enough over the past year.

We're the only country in Europe with a nitrates derogation now.

There's big questions and problems there, but it's amazing the mix of farmers that are here are talking about those problems.

There is an element there of maybe an old hippies club as well, and then there is maybe an element, and people know this sometimes, that organics is sometimes looked down upon by conventional farmers and vice versa.

Ultimately, I think we can learn a lot from each other.

And maybe it's the weather, maybe I'm in a positive mood.

Usually I'm a bit more cynical about this.

But I do think actually we get so lost, not just agriculture, but every sector in a rabbit hole on the internet of shouting at each other.

And I was at a talk yesterday and a woman came barreling up to me and she's like, I disagree with you on this.

But actually we sat there and we talked it out and it was really nice.