There continues to be a lot of talk around the potential for farmers to be paid for removing carbon from the atmosphere and locking it into their soil. However, the reality is that, in the Republic of Ireland, we have yet to even start on what will be a long journey for farmers to get properly rewarded for capturing carbon.

As Siobhán Walsh and Matt Dempsey report this week, this is not the case in Northern Ireland or Australia.

In Northern Ireland, agriculture minister Edwin Poots has committed £45m to establish the baseline for how much carbon is stored on each farm in NI.

Repeating this exercise in five years’ time will allow NI farmers establish an accurate measurement for carbon sequestered on their farms and receive the full market value of this.

Meanwhile in Australia, the Wilmot Cattle Company, after 10 years of measuring soil organic carbon matter, has traded carbon credits to Microsoft for $500,000.

Over this period, soil organic carbon more than doubled from 2.3% in 2011 to 5.2% in 2021.

Given Australia’s focus on both the British and EU market, we should not ignore the target set by Meat and Livestock Australia to produce carbon-neutral beef by 2030.

Clearly the Republic of Ireland risks becoming a laggard in this area. It is not an acceptable position for a grass-based, food-exporting country to find itself in – neither in terms of positioning in the marketplace nor maximising returns to farmers.

It is time to begin the journey towards getting an accurate and verifiable measurement on the level of carbon retained and sequestered on Irish farms – using a mechanism that allows for the full value of this to be recognised in any future trading scheme.

The use of the Brexit Adjustment Reserve fund to strategically invest in establishing the soil organic carbon baseline for every farm would start this journey and deliver an excellent return for farmers.

This week's cartoon

\ Jim Cogan

Commission out of touch on food security

Janusz Wojciechowski

Unfortunately, European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski continues to fail to grasp the scale of the challenge facing global food markets and the critical role the EU will play in preventing a global food crisis. It is a crisis that many are now realising could in fact have much wider ramifications than the current energy crisis.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has delivered one of the biggest shocks to global food markets in recent decades. Yet we have seen no increase in EU spending or the introduction of new safeguard mechanisms to help EU farmers grow food production while protecting their business from the risks associated with soaring input costs. The exceptional aid measure announced by the Commission last week amounts to a shuffling of deck chairs – we await solid action.

Farmers more than just passive observers at Glanbia

As the largest shareholders of Glanbia plc through Glanbia co-op, farmers are more than just passive observers in relation to current commentary by investors on its future direction. Given the diverging views and sustained pressure on share price, it would appear prudent for the co-op board to request that the plc board conduct an independent strategic review of the business – the objective being to gauge what is in the best long-term interests of shareholders, rather than have the agenda set by institutional investors with perhaps a shorter term focus. See this week's agribusiness coverage for more.