One of the first farming conferences I attended when I started full-time dairy farming was in 2011 and I remember being pregnant and uncomfortable as I tried to absorb as much information as I possibly could.

I recall a presentation titled “The threat of superlevy – options for the next two to three years” where the main idea was how farmers could navigate growing cow numbers in the buildup to quota abolition and when I think about it, from then until summer 2018 every conference, meeting, pamphlet and conversation has had dairy expansion as a byline and all fuelled by FoodHarvest 2020 visions. I say until summer 2018 because that was when I attended a Department of Agriculture conference titled “Sustainability Dialogue” and it slowly dawned that the Titanic needed to change direction…

Brainwashed

I admit, I am brainwashed. The potential of land popping up close to our milking platform sets my thoughts towards how many extra cows could potentially be milked in a race to milk more cows so I can employ someone to milk more cows, so I can work less while earning more by being highly efficient, with excellent fertility, high EBI cows, 85% grass utilisation, low-input, low-cost, low hours worked per cow, high profit per hectare... many, many targets to aim for but none of them are climate-related.

Have I attended eight years of dairy conferences and meetings and ignored the environmental messages that were given? No. They simply were not mentioned.

The narrative has moved on and climate change issues are coming fast down the tracks. There is a strong need to act quickly, stemming from Government commitments to a 30% reduction in overall emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and ammonia by 2030, which is tied into the Paris Agreement.

Four out of the last five years have resulted in increases in emissions and projections are showing an upward trend. Agriculture generates greenhouse gasses such as nitrous oxide (slurry and fertiliser applications) and methane (rumination and fermentation in the gut) and these are projected to increase simply due to greater livestock numbers and fertiliser usage.

Continuing on our current path without change will result in greater GHG and ammonia emissions and EU fines to the tune of €500m annually but more significantly loss of our “green” credentials damaging premium export markets.

Mitigating measures

There are mitigating measures that farmers can adopt to reduce agricultural emissions such as reducing methane through high EBI efficient animal genetics and extended grazing seasons, better fertiliser and nutrient use through protected urea products, improving liming, low-emission slurry spreading, manure additives, etc, but these measures would need to be adopted fairly quickly and even at that will not absorb projected increases.

Farmers simply cannot bear the brunt of this goalpost shift as battling the coal front of weather extremes while keeping heads above water is mentally, physically and financially exhausting at best.

Questions remain for those with skin in the game; Who will pay the fines? Will the blunt tool of culling the national herd, already used in Holland, be wielded here? Will one of these emissions targets become the new constraint to sector expansion? What about capital expenditure investments and loan repayments for farmers who are actively expanding? What happens when regulatory bodies have already decided that climate change and emissions are to be prioritised while the conversation on the ground is still surrounding expansion?

Clearly this is not a simple issue that can be solved by planting more trees in Leitrim. The first step in solving any problem is recognising there is one.

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My Farming Week: Gillian O'Sullivan, Dungarvan, Co Waterford