The Land Question has always been predominant in Ireland. According to forecasts, there will be as few as 15,000 farmers in twenty years’ time. As the Irish rural image undergoes radical transformation, this timely, informative, vigorously argued book will be necessary reading for those working in rural development, food production, housing, transport, heritage and conservation, to say nothing of those who simply care about Ireland’s future. Land Matters concerns social and ecological change, the underlying results of structural and policy decisions made in Brussels or Dublin and their impact on the ground. It addresses the following themes: globalization and the forces that shape society; the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), and why it has been reformed; social inequality; REPS (the Rural Environment Protection Scheme) and its impact; survival strategies in everyday life (farm households and diversification); green capitalism; landscape, heritage and the ‘politics of perception’; nitrate pollution; migration; contrasting rural visions (housing in the country, ‘clean’ food); and views of a region – west Cork – in which competing claims are made by farmers, hoteliers, conservationists and second-home owners. Key organizations such as Teagasc, the IFA, An Taisce and Organic Trust are also examined and profiled. Land matters permeate all our lives, from our supermarket shelves to our television screens and studies, from our boardrooms to our streets, dwellings, communities and belief systems. No one will be untouched by the issues raised in this pioneering, analytic work.
