Farmers will be asked to do more for climate and biodiversity

Sheep farmers and, indeed, all farmers will be asked to do more in the future to combat climate change and enhance biodiversity. Payments will be based on achieving these goals and it will be a matter of achieving continuous improvement rather than being paid to maintain the biodiversity, or aspects that will deliver a climatic benefit and are already present on the farm.

This was the message delivered by Jack Nolan, of the Department of Agriculture and Food, during Friday evening’s discussion on policy and environment as part of Teagasc’s virtual sheep week. He said “The challenge of our time is climate but also biodiversity and, under the Green Deal, farmers will be asked to do more.

Jack highlighted that an improvement in water quality will also come to the fore, citing that the trend in recent years has not been great

“We need to support farmers while they are doing this but we also need the marketplace to come in. For example, farmers with high organic matter soils will be asked to store more carbon, to protect what they have and to do more. The same with biodiversity; often, there are high levels of biodiversity on sheep farms, which is excellent, but we need to do more because it is management we’ll get paid for – not for keeping what we have but actually improving it.”

Jack highlighted that an improvement in water quality will also come to the fore, citing that the trend in recent years has not been great.

While sheep farmers are not associated with highly intensive systems utilising high levels of nutrients such as chemical fertiliser, they have been linked in recent years with water quality issues involving MCPA.

The use of nutrients and the manner in which chemicals such as MCPA are applied to control rushes were raised as two areas that will attract much closer scrutiny in the future.

Positive opportunities

There were opportunities raised for hill sheep farmers, in particular, but also for other sheep farmers in storing more carbon in soils.

“We need to store more carbon and soils are so important because we ask them to filter the water, we ask them to grow a crop and we also ask them to sequester carbon and we need to do more about that. And, hopefully, in the future there will be a market for carbon. There isn’t at the moment and that’s when these type of soils could come into their own but farmers will be doing more for that. It won’t be a thing that the soil is there, just keep it as it is.

There are 50,000 farmers receiving €250m a year

“You’ll have to do more but there are opportunities and there are other opportunities around agri-tourism and so on and hopefully there will be an income there that people can bring in.”

Jack was also hopeful that schemes such as the Green Low-carbon Agri-environmental scheme will continue into the future as these will be central in driving continuous improvement. “At the moment, the uplands and the western coast of Ireland sees the majority of money from GLAS, for example. There are 50,000 farmers receiving €250m a year so, hopefully, schemes like that will continue and we’ll keep on incremental progress improving our environmental footprint all the time.”

Measuring carbon

There is an increasing volume of dialogue surrounding carbon storage and carbon sequestration but there is also much to learn in this area. Teagasc director Professor Gerry Boyle, who was moderating the session, asked Dominika Krol, Teagasc research officer working in the area of gaseous emissions how feasible it is to accurately and rigorously measure carbon that is sequestered in agricultural soils.

Dominika said it is feasible to carry this out but cautioned that there is a long road ahead to do so.

“Our soils in particular are already quite carbon-rich so we are very lucky in comparison to a lot of our European counterparts. First of all, I think it’s important to remember to protect the carbon that’s already there and tailor our management not to lose that carbon. But in terms of adding more – because there is already a lot of carbon in the soils we are talking about adding a small pool every year, a small addition to a really large reserve. So it really does take a while to get a good handle on it but it is definitely feasible and not only that, it’s needed.”

Dominika said that Ireland needs a national network of monitoring soil carbon levels and that this should be the direction we are travelling towards.

Monetary value

In addressing how realistic it is to suggest farmers could see a monetary value for the level of carbon they sequester, Kevin Hanrahan, head of the Teagasc rural economy development programme, said that the concept exists in industrial sectors. He said that while it is a realistic concept, the complication is the high number of farmers in the EU and the task of firstly establishing baseline values for soil carbon levels. Then you must robustly establish the relationship between additional carbon sequestered and specific farming practices.

Get the carbon price right and create that incentive for farmers to do things differently

He said this will be the big challenge compared to, for example, a coal-burning energy station where a monitor can be put on the flue to monitor what comes out.

“It’s a little more challenging. You’ve got millions of farms all having an impact in terms of setting up that market but I think over time some of these technical challenges and market challenges can be tackled. Get the carbon price right and create that incentive for farmers to do things differently.”

In terms of measuring carbon sequestration on upland versus lowland soils, Dominika said the methodologies are the same but that soil types differ greatly. In the lowlands, there are mainly mineral soils and organic soils or a mixture of both. Uplands are mainly organic soils, such as peatland, so the carbon content of these soils is already vastly different. The methodologies are constant and include measuring carbon stocks over time.

Kevin Hanrahan highlighted that uplands sheep enterprises are entirely dependent on direct payments to generate a positive income. Jack Nolan added that a lot of the uplands are protected areas or Natura 2000 sites and that people who are farming on these are facing more restrictions than those on lowlands.

Direct payments

Both agreed that direct payments will be a vital part of incentivising farmers to maintain and improve these areas. Kevin said that this could come in the form of a redesign of CAP payments to reward farmers who are willing to go above and beyond minimum requirements to protect and enhance the environment.

Jack Nolan agreed, citing that this could be the emphasis of future schemes.

“I think the sequestration of carbon definitely should [be included in future schemes] and management aspects that improves this. I don’t think basic things like using phosphorus, potassium and lime should be because that’s like putting oil in the engine of the car. There is value in paying a farmer to sequester carbon, to protect water, to change their habits.”

Both men also said that more needs to be done to develop a premium market for this unique produce from high nature value farmland and that work needs to be done to engage greater consumer appreciation that these areas don’t just manage themselves.