Dempsey at Large: Carbon farming - potential or reality?

One can go through life full of potential. The key question of course is how and when is that potential realised?

Carbon farming from a farmer’s viewpoint is one of those areas where the potential is vigorously promoted when marginal land comes up for sale, or worse, when companies “greenwash” their credentials to convince the gullible that they are taking action to be environmentally friendly by reducing their “carbon footprint”.

But despite the justified cynicism and the significant losses incurred by some well-known agricultural figures who invested too early in schemes not officially authenticated, there is scope to develop the concept where it can provide an income stream for farmers.

But it’s not going to happen overnight. This is one case where official Ireland is right to take its time and develop a model that has credibility and the capacity to deliver income for farmers and those who own land.

The Minister for Agriculture has launched a public consultation process through which anyone can submit their views: it would be a pity if the submissions only came from bodies whose principal activity has concentrated on negativity to farmers and farming development.

The key requirement is that whatever scheme is developed has real credibility based on actions that either sequester carbon or reduce emissions and that certificates can then be issued that have a real value to those doing the work.

Already the key requirements are in place, but these are broadly just common sense in that whatever results are achieved must be capable of being measured, that they must be additional to whatever is being achieved at the moment and they must be permanent.

All of this is going to take work to monitor, report and verify, so are we going to see another bureaucracy created which will have to be paid for and if so by whom?

But that said, Irish agriculture is well placed to take the next step on this journey as we already have developed the Origin Green, Signpost and AgNav programmes which are assembling lots of farmer data.

Interestingly, already we are being told that direct reductions in emissions from livestock will not be eligible for any payments whenever the final scheme is developed.

This strikes me as a bit unfair, given how the science in this area is developing. It’s also notable that so far there is no direct mention of tillage farming being by far the most carbon friendly mainstream agricultural activity.

This would seem a logical way of getting more money into a sector that is under so much pressure from competitors with much fewer constraints than apply in Europe.

Though rewetting of peatland will it seems qualify for permanent payments. It seems inevitable that we are going down this road though on a broader level, one has to wonder if Europe can continue to afford to go out on an environmental limb, but that’s an argument for another place.