Four workshops took place in late July and early August in four locations across the country; Maam Cross, Co. Galway, Castletownbere, Co.Cork, Glendalough, Co. Wicklow and Sligo town, Co. Sligo. Sligo TV attended the Sligo workshop and the piece can be viewed here. The workshops were carried out to get the opinions of farmers in areas with high potential HNVf and to find out what challenges they face farming this type of land. This information is vital if farmers and also the wider community in these areas are to be supported.
The workshops also served as an opportunity to raise awareness of the HNV farming in these areas. Sixty farmers in total participated. Farmers were asked to fill in a very brief questionnaire. This questionnaire was filled in before any explanation of HNV farmland was given. Farmers were asked to describe their farmland in about 5 words, they were also asked some questions to assess some of the HNV ID Tool requirements and whether or not they had heard of HNV farmland before. A word-cloud was generated based on these words. The larger the word, the more often it was used in the questionnaire responses. The results of this can be seen below. For more details on the outcomes of the workshop click here