Teagasc is planning to roll out a nationwide network of demonstration farms to undertake measures aimed at reducing emissions from Irish farms.

While the plan is still in its early stages, Teagasc director Professor Gerry Boyle told the Irish Farmers Journal that up to 80 to 100 farms would be involved. There would be a particular focus on dairy farms.

Each farm would have a different portfolio of action ranging from the installation of PV solar panels to the renewal of hedgerows.

All farms involved would commit to a minimum action level including the spreading of protected urea and the use of low-emission slurry spreading technologies.

Economics

Boyle stressed that the programme would have a “holistic concept of sustainability”, whereby the economics of the actions as well as their benefits for the environment would be taken into account.

The results, successful or otherwise, would then be communicated to the wider farming population. The aim of the project would be to encourage farmers to implement the actions on a voluntary basis.

Boyle said it was a real concern that if Ireland did not meet its climate change targets then strict regulator measures would be imposed.

Regulations

“If emissions continue to grow, well, then, what will happen will be the imposition of probably very strict regulator measures that none of us want,” he said.

“Because invariably when you're in that situation, the measures that are going to be implemented will be very crude. They’ll be across-the-board type measures, they’ll affect the diligent as well as the not very good farmer. So we want to try and avoid that.”

For the programme to be successful, Boyle said it would require the support of the dairy co-ops and meat processors: “We’re convinced, because such is the scale of the transformation that’s required, we’re going to have to get all the players on board in unison.”

Read more

Teagasc income up €8m in 2018