I expect most farmers would agree that the climate is changing during the course of our lifetime.

Our grandfathers probably thought the same but moving swiftly on, I suspect there’d be little agreement among farmers as to the reasons for this change.

Some will agree with the conventional wisdom that it’s as a result of global warming and man’s production of greenhouse gases while others will say it’s nothing to do with man at all.

Climate has always been in a state of change, they will argue, and at the moment it happens to be getting a little warmer. After all, they may argue, the Little Ice Age just ended 150 years ago, so what’s the big deal now? However, what will certainly concern all farmers is that modern Irish agriculture is being blamed for the production of greenhouse gases – chiefly methane from bovines and also carbon release from soil. Livestock numbers may be limited by law as a result. This, to my mind, is totally unacceptable.

Agriculture is scapegoated for the excesses of heavy industry, fossil-fuelled power generation and transportation. Since we in Ireland have little heavy industry, few people and lots of livestock, agriculture is in the line of fire. But unlike toxic air pollutants from industry and vehicles, atmospheric methane is non-toxic to human health.

Now, I should declare my hand. I do not accept that mankind is totally responsible for global warming. The fact that the earth’s temperature is rising over the past 150 recorded years is irrelevant. For goodness sake, who do we think we are? Planet earth has been around for millions of years and the last 150 years are but one single grain of wheat in a tonne of the stuff.

Yes, I accept man’s activities may have some bearing on global warming but to my mind there is a cyclical element to climate change as well.

As regards preventing global warming, we are but like the poor old misguided King Canute on the sea shore.

Will reducing bovine numbers across the EU have any bearing on reducing greenhouse gases and averting global warming? There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of it making any difference. Reducing livestock numbers will only do one thing – make food more scarce and more expensive. Instead of the human race becoming extinct from a greenhouse gas-warmed world, we’ll all be dead from starvation first. That’s the serious bit out of the way and I’m reminded of a conversation I had some years ago with Philip, my New Zealander brother-in-law.

I argued as I’ve done here that we’re getting too bogged down with increasing temperatures and rising sea levels and that I’d personally welcome the hotter summers and colder winters.

He retorted: “If you lived on a little island in the South Pacific that will be flooded with the rising sea levels, you might have a different view.”

“But Philip,” I responded, “I do live on a soggy little island in the north Atlantic and we have been perpetually flooded since Noah’s Ark.”

Finally, I’m off to cereals and it’s been a struggle to get the head spray completed on the wheat. The weather’s not been good for flowering and fungicides only offer limited protection.

I think we’d all agree that, for whatever reason, it’s been a lousy start to summer.

Read more

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture

Scientific opinions on climate change

The Earth is in the midst of a CO2 famine – Princeton professor

MEPs pass stricter climate targets estimated to cost Ireland €1bn

Editorial: idealism trumps reality in climate change vote

Letter: false accusation – climate debate