Will there be money for doing the right thing?

Over the last fortnight, I have listened to presentations from tillage and beef industry representatives promising cash if we can show that we are reducing our carbon footprint.

I realise that dairy farmers have been receiving a top-up sustainability payment for some time, but these operate as bonus payments and while they may be welcome additions to a base price, that is of little consolation if the base price has fallen to a level that makes production barely profitable – if even that.

Typical dairy sustainability payments are about 1c/l. Taking a base price of say 37c/l, that’s less than 3%.

On the tillage front, at a well-organised presentation of the Tirlán tillage awards, the head of the Malting Company of Ireland outlined how the major drinks firms, such as Diageo, the owners of the Guinness brand, Pernod Ricard the owners of the Irish Distillers plant in Middleton and Heineken, the brewers, were all looking to reduce their scope three emissions – in other words, the emissions generated by raw material suppliers – by between 21% and 30%. They were under pressure, we were told, from their customers and Governmental legal undertakings to deliver these reductions.

It’s clear that some kind of grain quality assurance scheme on top of the long-established existing Irish Grain Assurance Scheme (IGAS) is going to have to be developed with cash to back it. The key of course is how much cash will be available and where will it come from?

The beef sector already has a market-led bonus payment with QA as a prerequisite for cattle under 30 months at slaughter and meeting some fairly normal conformation and fatness criteria, but there are no specific carbon footprint/emission standards as yet.

This has now further evolved with the development of a new system based on the AgNav concept. AgNav has been developed by Bord Bia, Teagasc and ICBF, and theoretically measures total greenhouse gas emissions for a farm, as well as emissions and carbon footprint per hectare and per unit of output.

Already beef farmers are being recruited for these processor led schemes, with a bonus for participation.

But again, there is no question of a guaranteed economically sustainable price in recognition of meeting environmental sustainability. A payment system for meeting these new criteria will be a critical dimension to any new CAP that emerges next year. Already it’s clear that these kinds of payments, coming from a national exchequer, are likely to meet with approval in Brussels.

Their maximisation should be the key target of industry representatives.