In March 2020, as the country grappled with the fallout of the pandemic, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan called on people to plant seeds on south-facing windowsills so that if there was a food supply crisis, “we would have our salads ready to go”. At the time his ideological comments attracted plenty of smirks and raised eyebrows from across the floor of the Dáil chamber.

But fast-forward 15 months and there is no doubt Eamon Ryan is having the last laugh. As Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, he now has the entire Government dancing to his tune – to such an extent that his idealistic views are now shaping legislation in the complete absence of any rigorous challenge or economic assessment.

As we go to press, TDs are set to vote on and, with Government support expected, pass the climate action bill championed by Ryan. The move will pave the way for the approval of a bill that will commit the State by law to halving carbon emissions by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. To put it in context, the target reduction for 2030 within the new bill is twice that agreed just two years ago by the last government. If applied equally, a 51% reduction target for agriculture is more than a trebling of the 10-15% target set previously.

Few can argue with the laudable intentions, but for rural TDs dancing to the tune of the Green Party leader’s idealism, there could be long-lasting political consequences given the impact on farming and rural communities.

At the launch of the Teagasc Signpost programme recently, Teagasc director Prof Gerry Boyle described the unreasonable requests to substantially reduce emissions of biogenic methane as threatening the very existence of the livestock sector.

Along with supporting the income of over 100,000 farmers, this is a sector that underpins employment throughout rural towns and villages. An EU analysis shows that agriculture employment as a percentage of total population in the border, midlands and western regions of Ireland to be one of the highest in Europe.

Despite this, we see rural TDs prepared to support a climate action bill that has the potential to devastate this source of economic activity in the complete absence of any economic analysis or a Government plan for how farm incomes and rural economies would be protected.

Teagasc figures point to Irish soils, mainly grassland, storing 90 times what the agriculture sector emits in CO2e per year

In an opinion piece this week, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue puts forward a strong defence of the sector in the context of tackling climate change. He points out the huge investment farmers have already made in delivering climate efficiency – with over €92m invested in Low Emission Slurry Spreading (LESS) alone.

However, as in the climate bill, there is a clear hesitancy and lack of ambition within the minister’s narrative around recognising the role of agriculture in both the sequestration and retention of carbon within soils – despite Teagasc figures pointing to Irish mineral soils, mainly grassland, storing 1,832 Mt CO2e.

To put this in context, this is equivalent to 90 times what the agriculture sector emits per year. With grazing livestock accounting for almost 90% of utilisable land area in the country (compared to an EU average of just 60%), the role of the sector in sequestering and retaining this carbon within our soils cannot be ignored – either in the context of calculating the sector’s emissions profile or its financial value in terms of carbon credits.

Rather than expressing hesitancy, the Government, like other grass-based food producing regions, should be driving the sequestration agenda and building EU support around calls by former European commissioner for agriculture Franz Fischler for extra carbon sequestered on farms to be included in an internationally recognised trading scheme. In this week's edition, Siobhán Walsh details the beginning of this journey on our beef and sheep farm in Tullamore.

But perhaps the biggest failing of Minister McConalogue, in the context of ensuring proper representation of agriculture within the environmental debate, has been his inability to hold Government colleagues to account.

Emissions

Within the Programme for Government, there was a commitment by all three coalition parties to conduct a review of greenhouse gas emissions on a consumption basis, with the goal of ensuring that Irish and EU action to reduce territorial emissions supports emission reductions globally. Not only has this commitment not been honoured but any reference to preventing carbon leakage has been significantly down-played within the bill.

It is incredulous that a food exporting country like Ireland is adopting such an approach nationally rather than seeing the opportunity to change the policy direction within the EU – where there is a growing acceptance of the need to look at consumption-based rather than production-based emissions. As pointed out previously by the Irish Farmers Journal, the current consumption-based model sees Ireland’s emissions profile based on energy we import and food we export. A consumption-based model would see the emission liability for the food we export move to the country of consumption rather than remain with Ireland.

In the aftermath of this week’s vote, there is an urgent need for those politicians claiming to represent rural Ireland to now get below the bonnet of the climate action bill and understand the implications for farmers and rural communities. With the bill likely to be enacted, attention turns to the Climate Change Advisory Council. In the coming weeks, it will set national budgets for 2021-2025 and 2026-2030. It will then be the responsibility of Government to allocate these budgets to each sector, including agriculture.

Ahead of this, rural TDs and political representatives must ensure the voices of farmers and rural communities are heard – not just in the setting of sectoral targets but in relation to the timeframe for delivery. There can be no sugar-coating the message: it is simply not possible for the agricultural sector to respond immediately to the enormity of the increased targets set by Minister Ryan. It will take time and require the development of new technologies.

Therefore, targets for agriculture must not just be balanced but also back-ended to give adequate time for new technologies to be developed, refined and adopted. There must be recognition that new environmental measures within the CAP will not be in place until at least 2023 and rollout and impact will take time.

There must also be a recognition that unlike other sectors which can pass through the increased costs associated with a green transition, farmers cannot. Therefore, the sector must be positioned at the centre of the Just Transition discussion at national and EU level. In the same way Germany and Poland have secured billions in support from the EU to assist in the green transition of their fossil fuel and heavy industry, Ireland must secure similar EU support for the green transition of our agricultural sector.

This week's cartoon

Trade: Brexit becomes reality

The UK and Australia have agreed the broad outline of a free-trade agreement (FTA). It will be some time before it comes into force but when it does, Australia will secure a tariff-free quota into the British market for 35,000 tonnes of beef and 25,000 tonnes of sheepmeat per annum. The beef quota will increase to 110,000 tonnes (almost 50% of total Irish beef exports into the UK) over the following decade with full trade liberalisation thereafter.

The agreement signals a UK trade blueprint that can be rolled out with other partners. In the case of the US and Brazil, access to UK agricultural markets will be top of their agendas with the terms of the Australian FTA the starting point for negotiations. Alongside this, a flawed UK-EU deal last December will see British farmers retain unrestricted access to the EU. It is a dangerous scenario for Ireland’s beef and sheep sectors and one that deserves much more political attention than it is currently receiving.

Irish Farmers Journal Junior

The engagement we have had from young readers over the course of the pandemic has been inspiring. And with that we felt they deserved their own paper. Written by young readers, with a little help from the grownup team, Irish Farmers Joural Junior shows the potential of Ireland’s young farmers. Much like adults, children are being confronted with negative commentary around farming. We aim to educate with the Junior edition by helping children, in a fun way, to explain farming to their friends. Everything from machines to forestry to the biomethane cycle. Most important, with schools breaking up, please be farm safety vigilant at all times.