The reality of daily life, farming with nature, on the biggest of the Aran Islands is brought vividly to life in a new TG4 series.

Pádraic Ó Flaithearta has a small dry stock suckler herd on Inis Mór and like hundreds of farmers across the Aran islands Pádraic farms traditionally in one of the most unique habitats of machair and species-rich grassland.

And he is one of the stars of a new series, Caomhnóirí na Talún, which follows five farmers over the course of a year as they farm with nature.

From his extensive suckler farm on Inis Mór to the karst beauty of the Burren to the dairy heartland of east Cork to an arable farm outside Maynooth in Kildare, cameras follow as these farmers create and conserve habitats on their farms, pioneer new ideas and try to find a way to protect wildlife and their living.

The Aran Islands contain seventeen different habitats that are increasingly rare in Ireland and Europe and nine of these are fully or partly dependent on extensive farming and in particular the system of winter and summer grazing practiced here and on the Burren in Co. Clare.

When conservationists for the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens in London searched for seed of the arable weed darnel raibhleas, they found it on Aran.

Pádraic’s machair land is home to breeding lapwing as well as tern, plover, wheatear and skylark and he regularly heads out to count species as well as monitoring potential threats like predation by hooded crows.

And his interest in nature has grown with the years and, as he says himself, with age.

“When you’re getting older, and wiser, that’s when you notice all these things {and} their importance,” he says.

But age is bringing other concerns for Pádraic too. This way of farming is labour intensive and generally associated with a low stocking rate which limits the income that can be made and Pádraic is seeing a generation of his farming neighbours getting older with no one to take over.

And that will impact both farm families and biodiversity on Inis Mór.

Caomhnóirí na Talún follows Pádraic and four other farmers as they create habitats like ponds, nettle patches or bee scrapes on their farms; as they let their hedgerows grow, blossom and fruit; as they discover treasure in the fields.

It captures them as they adopt new farming techniques like mob grazing or no-till to regenerate soil on intensive ground -or as they keep faith with traditions such as the winterage that maintain the wildflower beauty of landscapes like the Burren and the Aran islands – and all while trying the find a balance between nature and the realities of making a living from farming.

The backdrop to the series is the catastrophic declines of birds, wild bees and native plants. Even once common birds of our farmland and open countryside like the skylark and kestrel, are now in deep trouble.

The intensification of farming and forestry directed by policy and payments over decades, is seen as one of the most significant contributors to these losses – as land use changed, as wetlands and bogs were drained and reclaimed, as pesticide use and chemical fertiliser increased or as grass management changed such as the switch from hay meadows to silage.

As more and more land was brought into production, there was less and less space for wildlife. Yet if biodiversity is to improve, if habitat loss can be reversed or even halted, it is across Irish farmland that change will happen.

If it’s to happen, farmers are the ones who will turn this crisis around. And across the country there’s a growing number of farmers who are forging that path and farming with nature.

Caomhnóirí na Talún started on TG4 last week and continues on Wednesdays at 8.30pm.

Pictured: Pádraic Ó Flaithearta: stars in new TG4 series.