Intensive farming is having a detrimental effect on the diversity of plant and animal wildlife in the Irish countryside, according to the co-ordinator of a major study into the environmental health of the countryside.
Dr Gordon Purvis told The Irish Times that initial results from the Ag-biota project suggested the numbers of birds, plant life and insects decreased in areas devoted largely to grass production for dairy and beef farms.
He said the reforms of the CAP agricultural subsidy system, however, made it possible to encourage new methods of environmentally-sensitive farming.
The five-year project involving 20 scientists is studying plant and animal wildlife on Irish farmland, and aims to identify the numbers and types of bird, insect and plant wildlife to be found in grasslands.
The project will also develop methods to measure and compare levels of "biodiversity" in farming areas around the country.
The scientists are also carrying out experiments on the impact of farming methods on biodiversity. Biodiversity is a term used to describe the health of an environment in terms of the variety of different animal and plant species living there.
Dr Purvis, who is based at the department of environmental resource management at UCD, said the study was focusing on agricultural land.
While there had been a lot of focus on major species such as the corncrake, very little was known about the real extent of plant and animal wildlife in commercial farmlands.
The project is at an early stage, with three more years of research left. Initial results from surveys in 10 sites in intensively-farmed land, however, have found 14 plant species, 130 species of beetles, 85 different groups of parasitic wasps, 70 other insect groups and 40 species of spiders.
In the wider farmland landscape, 50 species of trees and shrubs, and 63 bird species have also been recorded.
The initial results from research on bird life, carried out by research student Mr Barry McMahon, suggest there is less bird life in areas where intensive dairy farming is taking place.
This homogenous landscape of high-yield ryegrass fields is called a "dairy prairie", according to Dr Purvis. "A dairy prairie with very few hedges and wire fences - you won't get many birds."
Research being carried out by Teagasc as part of the study has also found that the REPs scheme, aimed at reducing environmental damage from farming, may not be having any beneficial impact on biodiversity.
The scheme provides farmers with additional subsidies to limit the amount of fertiliser and animals on land. But initial results from Teagasc suggest farmers tend to overgraze REPs land using rotational grazing, where sections of field are intensively grazed for short periods.
"Little else has the chance to grow," Dr Purvis said. "This very intensive form of grazing management may be one of the most important limitations on the development of greater biodiversity in grasslands."
The study is also trying to identify new methods of farming which will maximise biodiversity while at the same time being profitable for farmers, such as using more diverse grass mixes.
"A whole new scene is being set by CAP reform change, which makes it now possible to start actually encouraging farmers as environmental managers," said Dr Purvis.