Conflicting timelines on the issue of rewarding farmers for carbon capture are emerging.

In June of this year Minister for the Environment and Climate Action Eamon Ryan said farmers will be paid for carbon.

However, speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal this week, Minister Pippa Hackett said payment for carbon will not happen straight away and that a carbon trading model needs to be looked at.

“I think that carbon trading piece doesn’t exist at the moment. Farmers can’t trade in carbon and that’s something that will have to be looked at in years to come.”

While the minister noted schemes like the Straw Incorporation Measure and the management of low-input grassland are forms of carbon payment, she does not see farmers being paid for measured carbon storage in the near future and stated that the EU will need to get more funds from somewhere other than?? CAP for carbon payments.

“That’s something that’s going to have to be worked out. I don’t think that’s something that’s going to happen straight away because we haven’t identified specifically the funds for paying for carbon,” she said.

Commenting on the recently launched soil sampling programme which only requires samples to be taken to a depth of 10cm, even though a sample depth of 30cm is needed for carbon measurement, Minister Hackett said “we need baseline data on carbon and we need to start somewhere”.

Carbon credits from forestry

Following on from Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue’s comments regarding the ownership of carbon credits from forestry, Minister Hackett said: “We as a State and every other EU state account for how land is used and where those emissions reductions come from, so whether it’s re-wetting peatlands or forestry, it’s not that the State owns it, it’s just it uses it to account for that.”

When asked if farmers would own carbon credits once their forests are replanted and are no longer in receipt of payments from the State, the minister said: “No such market really exists for it”.

Micro-generation

Speaking on the Micro-Generation Support Scheme which was to be launched four months ago and would allow farmers to produce electricity and supply it to the national grid, Minister Hackett said she did not know what the holdup on the scheme was.

She said: “I’m frustrated that the micro-generation scheme hasn’t been rolled out. I’ve been given assurances that it will before the end of the year.”