The Department of Agriculture is investing in the establishment of a national agricultural soil carbon observatory, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue announced on Thursday.

Teagasc will commence intensive monitoring of carbon emissions and removals across a range of Irish soils under the new observatory.

Minister McConalogue said: “How we manage the carbon locked up in our soils and support farmers to implement practices that build carbon must be built on robust science.

“This investment will create a significant bank of knowledge that will allow us to target and reward actions that remove carbon and store it in our soils. Farmers are best placed to be play a proactive role in this area.”

Accelerate research

The Department has said there is a need to improve the data in the national inventory to accurately reflect the actual emissions and sequestration from grasslands and verify progress towards targets.

The observatory will comprise up to 10 ‘flux towers’ on agricultural systems across a range of soil types, adding value to existing projects.

Director of Teagasc Professor Gerry Boyle said: “This investment will accelerate our scientific understanding of the quantity of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere that is locked up in our soils.

“It will complement the Teagasc Signpost farms initiative and provide farmers with the science behind how their farm management practices can increase soil carbon storage.”

The resulting observatory will enable Ireland to:

  • Better quantify and model soil carbon emissions and sinks from agricultural land.
  • Enable mitigation measures to increase carbon sequestration to be included in the national inventory.
  • Participate in the EU integrated carbon observation system network.
  • Enable Ireland to benefit from the 2018 EU effort sharing regulation.

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