Emissions from dairy, beef, sheep and tillage farms fell last year

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per hectare from dairy, beef, sheep and tillage farms fell, on average, last year. The drop was mainly due to lower fertiliser use across all farms.

Teagasc’s latest sustainability report shows that overall average agricultural GHG emissions per hectare have stabilised on a three-year rolling average assessment between 2017 and 2022, at 5.1t of CO2 equivalent per hectare.

During that time, dairy farm emissions per hectare have increased, while the other farm types have stabilised or reduced.

Agricultural GHG emissions per hectare on dairy farms are two to four times higher than other farm systems, due to the intensity of dairy farms.

The average dairy farm produced 606t of agricultural greenhouse gases (GHGs) last year, Teagasc’s latest farm sustainability report has found.

The majority (73%) of dairy farm emissions were from producing milk, although 26.6% of their emissions were attributed to beef production, such as cull cows and calves.

The average dairy farm produced 9.44t CO2 eq per hectare in 2022, a figure which fell by 0.2t/ha compared to 2021.

When Teagasc looked at the carbon footprint of milk production, it found the average dairy farm carbon footprint (including agricultural and energy emissions) of milk was 1.06kg CO2 eq per kg of milk, corrected for fat and protein.

The average cattle farm produced 150.9t CO2 equivalent of agricultural GHG emissions in 2022, around a quarter of the average dairy farm.

The majority, 97%, of these emissions related to beef production, although sheep production accounted for 2.6% of total emissions on Irish cattle farms.

Looking at emissions per hectare, the average cattle farm emitted 4.41t CO2 eq/ha in 2022, which was down 0.3t/ha on the previous year. The agricultural emissions per kilogramme of beef liveweight produced was 9.4kg CO2 eq on average, although there was a wide range between different farms.

In 2022, the average sheep farm produced 136.2t CO2 eq of agricultural GHG emissions.

Just over half (54.4%) of these emissions were generated by the sheep enterprise, with the remaining emissions (45%) generated by cattle on the sheep farms.

Sheep farms produced 3.3t CO2 eq per hectare last year, which was down 0.8t/ha on the previous year.

The average agricultural GHG emissions per kilogramme of sheep liveweight produced was 7.8kg CO2 eq.

The average tillage farm produced 137.5t CO2 eq of agricultural GHG emissions in 2022.

However less than a third (28.4%) of emissions on these farms were generated from crop production because while the farms were mainly tillage farmers, they had significant (62.3%) emissions from cattle on their farms, and a further 9.4% from sheep on the tillage farms.

Tillage farms had agricultural GHG emissions of 1.9t CO2 eq/ha last year, which was down 0.3t/ha.