On Tuesday, the grassland team at Teagasc Moorepark laid on a comprehensive conference and workshop detailing the future of grazing as climate changes.

Given the exceptional rain events, temperature variations and changing farm policy, more and more farmers and scientists are asking if grass, and in particular grazing, will remain front and centre for farmers.

How can grazing remain an option with exceptional deluges of rain? Are other crops an option? Will derogation changes mean less grazing and more inputs?

To answer all these questions in one day was never going to be easy. French scientist Luc Delaby was clear – stick with grazing for as long as you can, because it’s better for the environment, better for the pocket and Irish farmers should learn from the mistakes made by farmers in France.

He said that on paper, maize can make sense to some as an alternative feed, but when you balance for a protein deficit and its need for high inputs to grow, it loses competitiveness.

He also said the fact that it is only growing for six months of the year means you get nutrient loss from soils unless you have cover crops.

On the contribution of livestock to greenhouse gas induced global warming, Delaby was clear – livestock play a role, but other sectors like transport and housing have played a bigger role over the last 70 years.

He crunched numbers to explain this and showed that in France, the carbon dioxide equivalent produced by cars had increased 10 fold, while over the same period the carbon dioxide equivalent produced from cows had halved.

In Ireland over the last 70 years, there was a five fold increase in carbon dioxide produced from cars, as the carbon dioxide equivalent from cows remained more or less the same.

Over-amplified

In a country like Ireland, because farming (39% of total greenhouse gas emissions) is so important as an industry, the emphasis or blame game on livestock is often over-amplified.

Methane produced from livestock is a large part of this, so ruminants are often unfairly blamed relative to other sectors. On a global scale, farming and methane from livestock are closer to 10% of the total contribution to global greenhouse gas.

Rather than looking at alternatives to ruminant livestock, Delaby said our future depends on our ability to combine grasslands and ruminant farming to produce more with less inputs and less impact.

So the scientists concluded grass and grazing remains the core central competitive feed for Irish livestock, even if weather patterns are changing and will change further.

Reacting to meet the weather challenges on a daily, weekly and monthly basis is the job of farmers using measurement, data and grazing infrastructure.

To achieve this, there are real and present challenges. Despite the fact the Department made grassland recording an option for derogation farmers, there are still only 2,700 farmers recording more than 25 weekly measurements across the year.

That’s a tiny percentage of serious grass farmers. There are simply not enough farmers measuring grass weekly. The more immediate challenge is the fact that for the last three years, these serious grass farmers are growing less grass and feeding more meal and purchased forages.

Teagasc’s Michael O’Donovan showed figures for a matched sample of 250 farmers measuring grass for the last 10 years up to 2023. The numbers for 2024 will be even worse.

On top of this, grass and clover breeding programmes are slow. They simply can’t adapt to the pace of policy change. Yes genomic selection is now part of grass breeding, but policy is pushing or scaring farmers into much quicker change.

For the last three years, they have spread less fertiliser, grown less grass and input costs have gone through the roof at farm level. While grazing might still be number one, it is at odds with what is happening on farm. Teagasc and the Department have a big job on hand to get farm actions and competitiveness turned back on track.