Teagasc held a very successful open day this week at the environmental research centre in Johnstown Castle. In part it was due to the simplicity of the message being communicated to farmers by researchers and advisers. As a result, the level of farmer engagement was high, as measured by the quality and quantity of questions that followed each presentation.

It is encouraging to see the science around some of the relatively recent technologies proving to be robust and farmer confidence in these technologies growing. There was generally widespread acceptance among farmers that using protected urea over the course of the grass-growing season reduces fertiliser costs and emissions without negatively affecting annual grass growth.

Similarly, the appetite for advice on how to establish and retain white clover within ryegrass swards points to a sector that is already starting to adapt to a future where access to chemical nitrogen will be limited – due to price and/or increased regulation.

Multi-species swards

But it was also clear that, for many, the jury remains out on the role of multi-species swards. Further research on how these swards perform over a prolonged period across a range of land types, grazing management systems and weather conditions is needed to increase farmer confidence.

Of course, discussions on the need to further enhance the environmental footprint of Irish food production are not exclusive to Teagasc open days. Conversations among farmers and the industry on the challenge of reducing emissions and the need to protect water quality and enhance biodiversity are now taking place across the country on a daily basis.

This was once again reinforced when attending a Glanbia regional meeting in Tipperary at the start of the week. Thomas Ryan, senior sustainability manager with Glanbia co-op, detailed the dairy processor’s Living Proof sustainability programme, which is supporting farmers in the drive to improve sustainability. Again, farmers showed not just a deep understanding of the issues facing the sector but a willingness to adapt their farming practice in a bid to address them. It is unfortunate that many of the commentators who choose to publicly portray the sector as an environmental laggard do not attend such events. Had they attended the Teagasc open day, they would have been exposed to a farming community that is deeply committed to implementing existing and emerging technologies to further improve the environmental footprint of food production in Ireland.

Farmer frustration

But of course they would also have been exposed to a deep level of frustration among farmers. This was evident when discussing measures farmers could take to enhance carbon sinks. There is no doubt that until baseline carbon levels are established on farms, there is a hesitancy among farmers to adopt measures that would enhance carbon sequestration – as doing so could limit their ability to maximise the carbon sequestration value of their farms when carbon credits are introduced.

Interestingly, when the ownership of carbon credits for forestry was raised, the Teagasc view was clear that carbon credits should remain with the farmer who is removing the carbon from the atmosphere.

Also in recent days, we have heard a number of farmers make the point that until Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue comes forward with a detailed plan, the only option for them is to sit on their hands. This is on the basis that implementing environmental measures on their farms in advance of policy could in fact see them being penalised when accessing future environmental schemes. It is a ludicrous situation given that the industry has just a seven-year time frame to meet a legally binding emissions ceiling.

Clear plan required

There is no doubt that farmers are rising to the challenge of improving the environmental footprint of their farms and Irish food production. But Minister McConalogue risks undermining this momentum by failing to come forward with a clear plan – one that provides farmers with a detailed roadmap as to how a legally binding commitment to reduce agricultural emissions by 25% over the next seven years is going to be achieved.

Scale of the challenge

The scale of this challenge was put into context when Teagasc researchers acknowledged that if all farmers implemented all of the developed emission reduction technologies being put forward by Teagasc, emissions would only be reduced by 17-18%. How credible is it to expect that we will see this level of technology transformation on all farms within a period of just seven years?

Honest conversation

Possibly the biggest risk to achieving this and improving the environmental footprint of food production is the unwillingness of the minister to actually have an honest conversation with farmers around future policy – one that actually provides the sector with a clear policy landscape that allows farmers plan ahead for the next decade.

The state of limbo in which the minister has placed the sector must be addressed quickly. We have seen the impact of a lack of policy clarity playing out in The Netherlands. As Anne Finnegan reports, the lack of clarity on nitrogen plans on Dutch dairy farms has seen Rabobank downgrade the risk profile of its domestic dairy loan book to vulnerable. There is no doubt that banks across Europe will be monitoring this development closely, particularly in regions such as Ireland where nitrates derogations are in place.