Developing Rural Ireland: A History of the Irish Agricultural Advisory Services

Book excerpt: Rural Ireland and its agricultural way of life are emblematic of this country. For most of modern history, however, rural Ireland and Irish agriculture were comparatively underdeveloped. This changed dramatically in the twentieth century, during which they were transformed. In 1900 they were synonymous with poverty; by 2000 they had become synonymous with progress. Many people and organizations contributed to this, but chief among these were the Irish agricultural advisory services.First established in the early 1900s, they are today operated as a public service by Teagasc, Ireland's Agriculture and Food Development Authority. With their establishment, agricultural instructors, trained to the highest international standards, were dispatched to every community in rural Ireland. Their brief was to work with farmers, helping them to improve their farm enterprises and, in so doing, to develop rural Ireland. This gradually bore fruit, as each succeeding generation of agricultural advisors and farmers cooperated to adopt the most modern agricultural approaches. This book tells their story.