Ways to hit the 25% 2030 target.

lalababa

I can't easily find what are the main (and in what order of magnitude ) causes of agri emmisions . It goes abit like this.

1 . Belching and farting of bovines and I presume ovines and pigs.

2. Something about fertiliser.

3. Something about machinery emmisions.

4. Emmisions from animal waste storage.

AND ways to reduce agri emmisions.

1. Food additives (Something about seaweed)

2. Feed alternatives..?

3. Rotational grazing..?

4. Covering slurry/dung heaps..?

5. Might tie in with 4....biodigesters.

6. Decrease in fertiliser usage.

7. Decrease in animal numbers.

Please feel free to add some more.

I reckon it will be a incentified major decrease in numbers and fertiliser. And a big push towards extensive/organic farming.

lalababa

Ps I don't like this idea of slaughtering everything at 24 months as afaic it would lead to intensive rather than extensive practices.

TalkingBull

Will this be a 25% reduction in stocking rate decided by , say, an average LU/Ha over previous x number of years?

Or, decided by land type, location, divide up the country in regions with a target LU/Ha farms can work towards?

If your currently lowly stocked, how would that affect your numbers in the future?,

what is the going rate for a CarbonCredit/Ha/year on the pan-Eu credit market? (i.e my 25% will be a tradable commodity no? :P)

lalababa

Sure nobody knows atm I'd say. There will have to be a decrease in animal numbers.

There will have to be money (ie schemes) involved.

A big uptake in forestry schemes would likely bare the brunt of things. Followed by paid schemes to drop units/ha , fertiliser application. Maybe schemes for dry housing. (Is it better than slats for gases?)

I wouldn't say lowly stocked farms would be disadvantaged. (Prehaps even rewarded) Rather highly stocked ones, and I'm sure they'd be compensated through schemes.

Tis all pie in de sky atm..untI'll we hear what's gonna be done.

But watch out for the different reps and lobby groups comming up with stuff that screws the small or disadvanted western farmers. Such as the 24 month slughter idea.

Keeping stock outside on grass and moving for as long as possible has to be right up there top of the list.

Grassland management and soil management has to improve big time.

I see it all to often 10 or 20 cattle in a big open field over grazing plants for weeks.

Danzy

The plan seems to be very intensive and larger scale for some and balance it out with a lot more low stocked, more organic etc

lalababa

I've just been looking into the seaweed additive area, and some results seem to be very good. Both for reducing methane emmisions and also increasing weight gain..although I did read about a decrease in milk in one study.

If production and processing of seaweed in Ireland can be ramped up whilst not degrading the marine environment we may be onto a winner.

Then compulsory/or incentives to feed all or most of animals a seaweed supplement would make a big dent. I've read that as little as 30g/day has the desired effect.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119439046#Comment_119439046

https://www.mayonews.ie/comment-opinion/de-facto/30009-seaweed-another-natural-resource-sellout

it’s a gas country we live in all the same

ruwithme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119438816#Comment_119438816

Would be my reading of it too, factory type large scale farms will remain as are, but lots of compliance & regs for them too remain, they will have clever people working for them to be able to continue.

Smaller farms won't have that to call on as above, any man without a successor will soon get fed up of additional compliance & regs & goal posts maybe changing, so this is where i see reductions in dairying & larger suckler family farms.

Gant21

I’m going vegetarian, wafer thin ham.

_Brian

Don’t think anything will satisfy the backers of this push except a herd reduction.

this isn’t really about climate. It’s about food supplies and production. Moving people away from meat to substitutes manufactured in warehouses in industrial estates, it panders to the vegans and moves

food production to the bill gates of the world so they can control that. Control Tue food and you control the people, that’s why farmers are so dangerous.

lalababa

If ye could keep to the topic in the op..ie how the 25% is going to be achieved...that would be great. We don't really want to fly off in wild tangents.

I quickly googled whether dry bedding (farmyard manure) gave off less emmisions than slurry. And it seems yes it does both in situ in the shed and whilst and after being spread. By how much I don't know. If anybody knows more (or anything 🙂) about it please post.

So one way to go would be any new sheds being solid floor sheds?

wrangler

I was talking to the guy from pruex in the welsh show, he has an interesting story to tell about using Clay derived bacteria against disease in straw bedded shed, he claims it even dries the bedding.

It even is used in the outdoor calving paddocks in some of the big suckler farms in Scotland.

I think razor 8 tried it a couple years ago, wonder how he got on.

If it dried the bedding it'd definitely give off less emissions, (just to get back to topic) and improve foot health in sheep

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119442210#Comment_119442210

I'll save ya.😁

You're not off the wall completely with that post.

http://sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170330190304.htm

There's instruments out now where you can place them over the soil and it can tell if you have methane eating microbes or methane making microbes.

We haven't even gotten to the page yet to ask what some pasture soil are like in Ireland. Knowing researchers here though they'd pick a soil destroyed by pesticides, herbicides and previous tillage...test and proclaim no methane eating microbes here.

Would recommend looking into holistic management by Allan Savoury.

Simple YouTube videos.

The more grass you grow, the more carbon you pull from the sky and store in the soil where it belongs.

Sheep breeder

To cut back by 25%, do away with derogation and level the playing pitch, all farms the same level. Will be a quick way of bringing the dairy herd down.

tabby aspreme

Can't see an increase in forestry any time soon, it at it's lowest since the 1940's, extra red tape has it ruined

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119443241#Comment_119443241

Outdated forestry policies has it ruined by going down the road of block planting non-native spruce on peat rich soils which made no sense from a climate or biodiversity point of view - alot of the delays also caused by the likes of Coillte flooding the system with substandard applications in large tranches that required extra staff with compliance knowledge in Ecology, water quality etc. Recent figures from the EPA also show outdated forestry practices are putting alot of pressure on water quality and fish habitat in a growing number of catchments and is a signficant factor in the collapse over the last 30 years in the number of "pristine" rated lakes/rivers, especially on upland peat soils. We really should be looking at an agro forestry model that combines small and linear plots with conventional farming as is practiced in many parts of the EU. Good article below covering these issues

https://www.noteworthy.ie/spruced-up-pt1-5241271-Oct2020

Siamsa Sessions

Genuine question: will this 25% notional figure slowly fade when the current Government is out of office and the Greens are on 3-4% for another few elections?

I know it's "legally binding" but what does that mean in reality? The Government was apparently legally bound to take €13bn in uncollected tax revenue from Apple, but first it challenged this decision in Europe and then it delayed everything, dragging its feet as the most preferred mode of travel. I haven't checked, but as far as I can tell, the issue has since fallen off the agenda. Did we ever get the €13bn? Will we ever get it? Who knows. The media move on and life continues.

I might wish this wasn't the case, but the Government will be very slow to reduce food exports and the related jobs/revenue the sector generates. They might have announced 25% last week, but you can tell their heart isn't in it. If it was, there'd be more fanfare around it and some sort of realistic plan would be at least on paper. LESS, methane additives, MACC, etc. are fiddling around the edges, and very unlikely to have any real effect.

Farmers, as ever, are on their own. If you're not out on a limb with high stocking rates (having followed Teagasc/Government policy!), then I don't see any big schemes/policies coming from Government to rock the boat and impact the majority of farmers in Ireland. Sucklers numbers are dropping naturally, as are some of the oul lads who own them. The only challenge for the Government is make sure water quality doesn't deteriorate due to nitrates. They can't hide from those figures in the same way they can fudge emissions and GHGs.

We'll keep doing what we're doing (plenty great examples above from several posters) and keep an eye on emerging science (more examples above), but I won't be loosing any sleep about 24.5% or 25.4% in 2030.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119444246#Comment_119444246

Fully in agreement with this. I wouldn’t be too worried at all about it. The numbers in a lot of places are dropping naturally anyway.

I was talking with a neighbour a few weeks back and we went all around the circle of the neighbouring farms around ours. There’ll be an awful lot of land up for sale in the next 20 years I’d say. As we went around the different farmers there’s not too many with an heir to the throne. I’m sure if a lot of people here do the same around your own farms you’ll get the same results. Or try and count the amount of full time farmers you know in their 20’s or 30’s, I doubt you’ll run out of fingers counting them!

It’s the same with turf cutting, all a big fuss about nothing really. In 20 or 30 years time there’ll be very few houses at turf anyway as the younger generations have no interest in being on the bog, it’s much handier just pay for the oil no matter what the cost and get it delivered!

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119444648#Comment_119444648

People are very well off now, I reguaily meet a thirteen year old when I'm getting the paper on a sunday morning. He's buying his cup of coffee.

I reckon while that's going on there's no loss on anyone yet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119444246#Comment_119444246

Brilliant post sir

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119444784#Comment_119444784

You're far too kind. It's only an opinion really.

I work in data science off-farm and see various "models" for all sorts on a daily basis. Trying to estimate emissions given the current technologies and the number of variables involved is nothing more than finger-in-the-air stuff. I'd be afraid to say this out loud coz I'd be labelled a climate denier (I'm not). Putting simple numbers like 25% on the natural world makes no sense in scientific terms, but it's used as shorthand, or a metaphor, in policy documents and in the media.

Arguing over percentages when there is genuine uncertainty around the methodology means the science can't be proven. And that's before you look at the vested interests (on all sides) who can generate/manipulate data to back up whatever their beliefs are.

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119444246#Comment_119444246

Exactly, like the big corporations " buying" carbon credits and working away like before

monseiur

According to a report in one newapaper yesterday, Ireland will have to reduce cattle numbers by over 1.4 million head by 2030......and another article in the same paper reported that Brazil plans to increase it's cattle herd population by 30 million head by 2030 Enough said. It proves yet again that the lunatics have taken over the asylum and will be in charge for the forseeable future - a future that looks very bleak indeed not just for this country but for the whole western world.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119445241#Comment_119445241

And I wonder how many millions of litres of diesel those cargo ships will use every day to bring meat from one side of the world to the other.

when the exact same product can be raised here in far better conditions and to far better standards on grassland and sold locally.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119445317#Comment_119445317

I hear those cargo ships are very efficient, I remember a farmer saying it was cheaper to get the grain to Ireland than from from the port to his place

bogman_bass

Yeah shipping is one one of the lowest emissions link in the chain

plus when we export 90% of our beef it doesn’t come across as very credible to complain about shipping beef.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119445241#Comment_119445241

Those plans are under the current scumbag of a President there who has allowed the ranching and timber mafia free reign across the Amazon and native lands since 2019- hopefully the election this autumn will see him out of office(his is currently well behind in polls) with the leading candidate having a solid record of reigning in deforestation and the elements behind it his last term in office. The US, Norway etc. has also offered the country tens of billions of Dollars in cash if they halt deforestation. Also I can see the EU coming under increasing pressure to ditch Mercosur with even most of the German Government now against it. Interestingly a number of Blueshirt MEP's from here continue to support that rotten deal in the EU parliament - something for farmers here to think about at the next election......

Would changing the livestock unit value of a calf be positive? Just for schemes.

AFAIK, once a lamb hit's the ground it's the same 0.15 value as a ewe. A donkey foal same as an adult LU value. But a calf vs 2 year old bovine is different.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119444246#Comment_119444246

The 'legally binding' nature of the targets will be used by environmental pressure groups in lawsuits to prevent new infrastructure, renewals or grants of licences of all types - basically to choke off economic activity they don't like.

Progress towards the targets will be achieved in a 'negative' fashion via the courts, rather than 'positively' by unpopular government action. Politicians are answerable to the people, but judges are not.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119445873#Comment_119445873

I'm not one for Conspiracy theories but I genuinely think you've hit thr nail on hhd head here.....the age of slaughter encouraging intensive production seems crazy to me given the context.....

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447604#Comment_119447604

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119444246#Comment_119444246

Something must be done and someone must carry the can, it won't be the class most outraged by it all, it won't be FG or FF who want to move agriculture to a mostly corporate model.

It's going to be most of us, the small farmer and have no doubt, if you aren't sending 1000 plus to the factory a year you are in the small group and for the road eventually.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447617#Comment_119447617

It's such a short sighted counter productive move though....listening to a genuine expert on fire control/prevention the other day and what he had to say was very interesting/balanced I thought....presenter asked him at the end what is the number one thing that could be done to solve/mitigate/limit wildfire problems....his reply...if you speak to any of the fire crews that had to deal with these fires in France, Spain etc and ask them for possible solutions....their reply to a man/woman.....stop driving farmers off the land.....incentivise them to come back and manage the landscape......most of the fires happening in unmanaged landscapes.......areas where 1000s of acres controlled by large operators or land abandoned etc

We always seem to copy the worst ideas from outside our country and enact them just as the places we copy them from are finding out how detrimental they are.......its the same with so many things......20/30/40 years late to a **** party/bad idea...but plough on regardless ..... you can see it in health, education, privatisation ....

It's sad to see it happening......and most of it is driven by greed....I hope it backfires spectacularly personally.

MrMusician18

The average age of the Irish farmer is 55 with a third over the age of 65. So listening to government in that no one will be forced to cut numbers, what is going to happen then is quite obvious. They are going to encourage older farmers to retire and put that land into other use than animal rearing. This may be tillage, trees, lay fallow in a land stewardship kind of role. In exchange for this i envision grants as as a sort of pension.

For those that continue, emission reducing feed additives will be required, a certain percentage of electricity will need to be generated on site and a strict reduction of fert inputs will be required.

In short, the bulk of the work will be done by farmers exiting the business to not be replaced - this was going to happen anyway. The remainder will be done by new farming practices.

Is this just another thread complaining about persecution or is anyone going to discuss actual legit ways to achieve the target or contribute to achieving the target e.g 0.5% from x, 0.8% from y and so on

If its just a bitch and moan thread, fair enough, though are ye not getting bored of those at this point?

IMHO peatlands are a massive low hanging fruit that could see real gains in CO2 reductions by massively expanding the rewetting projects. Same with forestry, there's huge scope to massively expand it which would also bring about significant gains towards the target.

I know the herd reduction is a touchy subject so lets say that gets taken off the table as an option, what does that leave and how would it be done to get to 25% reductions in GHG's?

farawaygrass

What was the average age of farmers 20 and 30 years ago? Id bet it was as high as today. I see around here where the sons showed little interest in farming, went and got a trade and worked away. They are all nearly getting involved again part time. There is a draw there that pulls a lot of people back to the home farm and definitely still a mindset of not being the one who sold the family farm.

on the greens, I can nearly see them not losing any seats in the next election. The worst outcome for us imo would be a sf and green coalition.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447858#Comment_119447858

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-coa/censusofagriculture2020-preliminaryresults/demographicprofileoffarmholders/

According to the CSO in 1991 33% of farmers were under the age of 45. That’s down to 20% now. In 1991 20% were over 65, that’s now at 33%. The age profile is definitely rising and in my opinion will rise a lot more and a lot quicker in the next 15-20 years.

I don’t know what age you are but if you’re old enough to think back on the men in their 20’s to 40’s farming in your area 25-30 years ago I bet a lot of them are still farming now as there was no family member interested in taking it on.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119445857#Comment_119445857

The 20 biggest container ships in the world emit more emissions than all the cars on the planet.

Very efficient no doubt, but still billions of litres of diesel need to be produced for them.

Has to be some big scope for hedgerows to be managed properly and more laid or planted.

Can they be let grow a bit wilder rather than just cut every year or too? That Would be very beneficial for pollinators and other insects which are in trouble.

Would you rather look at a monoculture of sitka spruce trees or smaller grassland paddocks with well managed hedges?

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447674#Comment_119447674

Peatlands are what Coillte plant and over 90% of that has already been done.

Restoring bog in Ireland will involve a lot of forestry being knocked.

It would make a significant impact though.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447674#Comment_119447674

Low hanging fruit? Eco colonialism.

monseiur

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447674#Comment_119447674

Vow, that's a great idea, turn our peatlands into swamps and marshlands, why not plough all the fields and replace grass with wild flowers and bird seed. We already import thousands of tons of peat moss from eastern Europe while we're just about allowed to gaze from a distance at our own. Before we know it all our milk will be imported, all our beef will come from South America, all out chickens will be shipped from the Far East...at what cost to the environment ?? The inconvenient truth is that whether we reduce our emissions by 1%, 25% or 100% it will have zero effect on the environment. China are in the process of building 6 to 10 massive coal powered power stations which will come on stream in the next 5 to 8 years, Japan & Germany are moving away from nuclear power plants and building coal powered stations, India have similar plans to China regarding extra coal powered generation .....I could go on and on about what's happening in Russia, South America, USA etc. On the other hand Ireland, a tiny rocky outcrop in the north Atlantic is going to save the planet by reducing the no. of, almost organic, cows grazing on natures grass, and by driving electric cars. How did we get to this, why nobody shouted STOP ? It's true what they say ''common sense is not too common''

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447674#Comment_119447674

Love the way you characterise people posting legitimate concerns at the direction this travelling as bitching.......

Are you going to post in the style of a Govt Public Relations/Press Release/Smiling Spin Merchant for this thread?

I might agree with some of your points but are you not getting bored of dismissing legitimate concerns and refusing to engage or acknowledge them at this point.........

Or is everything in greenwash land shiny and happy all the time ..... its a complex issue, Im not sure I understand all the implications of some what is happening re: govt actions to climate targets etc but I don't mind admitting Im really really suspicious of you and your posting style.......everything is tickety boo, lets ignore anyone expressing doubts and move on to topics I want people to focus on....oh look over there its a govt press release regarding climate targets...an article showing targets aren't being met etc etc

I'm not necessarily against any measure btw...unless it further concentrates power etc in the hands of the few so let me ask you a question...

What can be done to mitigate GHGs that puts small to medium farmers destiny back in their own hands and doesn't encourage intensive operations with the countryside ending up hollowed out in time....but instead leaves a decent standard of living for those farmers and keeps those communities viable or is that something that would be considered undesirable at this point

Let me ask you another one....do you think that reduction in slaughter ages is a good idea given that it may end up encouraging intensification and more inputs....

And here's another one...shouldnt farmers be allowed sell carbon credits for actions taken on their own land in some fashion......

I do hope the response is not another tiresome...look over here at this new shiny thing or some version of DYOR....

J.O. Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119447674#Comment_119447674

Okay you've asked about percentages, can you put a figure on the significant gains from rewetting bogs and forestry.

Bear in mind the state (Bord na Mona) owns a lot of bogs so rewetting those wouldn't count towards agriculture.

Also bear in mind realistically most farmers are not going to plant all their land.

The problem is the minister for agriculture and the minister for the environment spent months arguing whether the cut should be 20% or 30% but no real idea of what could be achieved or how (it could be more or it could be less). It seems there plan is to set a target for every sector and hope some advancements in technology's will magically mean targets are hit.

I think the herd cut will happen indirectly by incentives for lower stocking etc. I saw where a maximum stocking rate would count as 2 actions in the new eco scheme. There won't be mandatory destocking as that would cost too much in compensation.

Danzy

The class who made up the Empire, the Jesuits etc is staying home and turning inwards.

It will not be to their cost but those beneath them.

They'll be happy out getting their beef from the Amazon, veg and Milk from Russia or if Irish, vast factory farms.

What will never happen is anything that materially affects them.

Siamsa Sessions

As I said above, 25% means nothing.

While people are rightly worrying about what the impact will be on their farms and the uncertainty of the next few years, we should also remember how globalisation operates.

Here's an example from last week:

One of the main beef processors in the country has a butcher shop onsite. It's two miles down the road from us here in the south-east of the country. My mother goes into the shop to get a few bits and pieces most weeks. Last week, she picked up a bag of chicken goujons while in there. She put on a few the day after and thought they seemed smaller than usual, so looked at the bland packaging. This butcher shop and its meat processor owner boasts about "100% PREMIUM IRISH MEAT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR" but have one guess where the chicken was from? It was Thailand.

Globalisation doesn't give a tuppeny fart about GHGs or climate. Neither do those multinational processors or retailers (or consumers) who benefit from it.

White Clover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119448365#Comment_119448365

Well said.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119448365#Comment_119448365

Just to put a few figures on the China situation;

They currently have 1,110 operating coal powered power stations which account for 50% of total global coal electricity generation

In 2021 they started construction on 33 gigawatts of new coal powered generation capacity, that’s 3 times more than the rest of the world combined.

They are expected to put a further 150 gigawatts of coal fired power into operation before 2026.

To put that into context Ireland has a total of 1.2 gigawatts of coal or peat powered power stations in operation so China is planning on developing a further 125 times the total Irish capacity over a 4 year period.

Anyone that thinks anything we do here in Ireland is going to make a difference to the world climate is living in cuckoo land. If every one of us lay down and died and left the country to grow completely wild again it won’t make one bit of difference to the climate.

I understand everyone need to do their bit but until the big polluters are scaled back the rest of the world changing is meaningless.

Danzy

Climate change is an Asian story now.

Whatever Little Europe and North America put out, eliminating that will not make a dent in the Asian carbon growth story greater than a few years.

A lot of the drive against agriculture in Europe is that people don't even want to pay for the cheap price now, outsourcing to even poorer paid workers than many Irish farmers, where there is no additional cost from standards, environmental,etc is their solution and we'll call it green.

The winter can't be cold enough this year in Germany, the same attitude that got them there is now being applied to food in Europe.

Western tech is the only thing that will solve climate change because all of Asia and Africa have zero interest in it.

funkey_monkey

It would probably work out cheaper and better for the rest of the world to build some power stations for China.

paddysdream

Does anyone think that all this 25% stuff will be long forgotten by 2030 .

From my understanding all this carbon whatever is numbers on a spreadsheet so therefore an accounting issue .The political theatre from a couple of weeks ago is yesterdays news .ER got his little victory to show his supporters whilst MM and LV "defended " normal people that are concerned with day to day living .

Meet a lot of farmers every week and at this stage its gone from the daily conversation .

Stuff like magic boluses to reduce methane ,LESS, rules regarding tilling stubbles ,green cover etc etc are all just business oppurtunities for some and an imposed cost on farmers .I would be much more interested in reducing my overheads/outgoings whilst increasing my output ie making a few more bob ,rather than concerned with airy fairy notions regarding the 3 card trick that is "Irelands need to reduce our emissions to zero in order to save the entire planet "