Partnership with farmers will be needed to get them to adopt the new technology and management systems demanded to tackle climate change, Professor Frank Vanclay has insisted.

Asked by Teagasc’s Mark Gibson if too much was being required of farmers in terms of behavioural change in order to cut emissions and meet climate targets, Vanclay insisted that farmer buy-in will be needed.

“How do we get a change in farmers’ behaviour? And the answer is that a top down approach is not going to do that,” Vanclay said.

“There’s some sort of co-management, co-development, co-creation, co-understanding is going to be needed for them [farmers] to take this on board and regard it as something that’s important,” he maintained.

Teagasc beef specialist Aidan Murray said that while the focus was rightly on the need for more engagement with farmers on the implementation of policy, “much more engagement” was required with policymakers at scheme development stage because of the greater emphasis on scheme delivery and hitting deadlines.

Teagasc climate adviser Seamus Kearney maintained that not all research is applicable “to all farmers, all of the time”.

“We have to pick the little nuggets that will add value to each farm and to do it in a positive simplified way,” he said.

‘It is a hard life being a farmer these days’

Professor Frank Vanclay claimed that there was a feeling among farmers – particularly in the Netherlands where he is now living – that their way of life is under attack.

And he said this sense of disaffection was a factor in the farmer protests in Holland and other countries.

“It is a hard life being a farmer these days. Everybody is out there attacking you,” Vanclay said.

“The greens are out there attacking you; the environmentalists are out there attacking you; society is out there attacking you; the government is out there attacking you,” the Groningen University professor claimed.

“That is why farmers need to feel valued,” Vanclay insisted.