We’re back with Shane Casey in The Burren, where it’s been a good Spring. Family and farm are thriving. For Shane, nature conservation and productivity go hand in hand. As the debate rages around the EU Nature Restoration Law, he is sympathetic to the farmers who are being asked to undo a lifetime of ‘improvements’ to make space for nature.

A new baby in the house has the tendency to make time disappear, and pushes most other things to the very back of your mind, so my apologies that it has been almost a year since my last letter – but what a year it’s been!

Let me take you back to the beginning of this year… what makes a ‘good’ Spring?

For a tillage farmer, it’s the right balance of weather conditions to get their crops planted and growing. For a dairy farmer, it’s a flush of new grass growth at the right time to get their milk yield up. And for a suckler or sheep farmer, like our farm at home, it’s not suffering any losses during the lambing or calving periods, neither the newborns nor their mothers. It gets better again if you have no need to call a vet for a caesarean section, and no outbreak of disease or ailments.