When it comes to meeting our climate targets, we have no plan and are crossing our fingers and hoping for the best, according to David Styles, professor in agri-sustainability at University of Galway and director of the agricultural science degree there.

“We don’t have a clear strategy for how we are going to meet our greenhouse gas targets long term. I think that’s a real fundamental problem for farmers who need certainty to make decisions,” Styles told attendees at a recent Agricultural Science Association (ASA) event in Laois.

“Geopolitics is increasingly uncertain and nobody likes change.

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“But having said that, we don’t have a strategic and realistic vision of where we are going. Agriculture and land use policy is setting farmers up to fail because we don’t have solutions or a clear pathway to address the challenges.”

Change is needed

He said that while change is risky and it is difficult to know what to change and where to go, not changing poses more of an economical and environmental risk.

“It’s hard to reach these targets without change, something has to change - that’s the key thing. This is where discussion is needed – what do you prioritise?”

Scenarios

Styles' work analysed possible future scenarios and their impact on greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to find ways in which we could reach climate neutrality.

The modelling also considered other factors such as economic risk and food security.

Scenarios examined were business as usual, sustainable intensification, cattle plus nature, protein diversification and bio-based economy.

“We started to think about how we could evaluate land use choices and how they would play out in that certain picture."

The dairy sector was prioritised in order to reach the climate targets in Styles' work.

“What gets squeezed in most is the beef area. I’m not saying that’s the way to go, but that’s how we made it balance.

“We ended up with much smaller areas going into beef – a much lower stocking rate but a much bigger beef area.

“In this scenario, the land use started to change – much more forestry. We rewetted as much as we could from organic soils and, in some scenarios, we had more tillage crop areas. Over a number of decades, these are big changes.”

Land usage

Styles, who was involved with the recently published Land Use Review report, found that the future of agriculture could look very different and there is an opportunity to have a more productive landscape in terms of food and bio-based products.

“We are not necessarily using the land as well as we could to maximise output and we could do all of this while adding more environmental value.

“We are very far from any kind of optimising values when you think about it.

“All of the benefits involve very big changes in land usage at a national level and that’s the challenge."

His research found that the scenarios that did best were the diversification scenarios – particularly sustainable diversification, in terms of mitigating risk.

It was found that this could deliver more food, fibre and energy, with lower environmental impact and greater resilience to future uncertainties.

Social and cultural issue

Comments were made from the floor that this is not just about economics and development, it is social and cultural and touches a broader issue.

It was also commented that while we have national targets, the planning needs to be brought to a local level to give people the space and flexibility to meet targets in their own way.

Styles believes that there is an underestimation of risks.

“I think the social discussion is absolutely critical, but it needs to engage with the future risks we face, because the world is not static and it is changing incredibly quickly, it is more uncertain than ever.”