Climate/environment is the key challenge for Irish dairy for the next decade and beyond — dwarfing the challenge of other macro issues like Brexit and Covid-19.
The only solution for us to surmount these challenges is to adopt a ‘whole-of-Government’ and ‘whole-of-sector’ agreed approach.
While a lot of brilliant work is going on, there are far too many silos that are not communicating with each other.
But the road ahead is not only a challenge — it also presents opportunities and this needs to be underlined.
We must remember that Irish dairy, and agriculture in general, is coming off a very high base. We have excellent EU leading metrics on the likes of air quality, water quality and carbon per unit of output.
Nonetheless, we have to acknowledge some of these metrics are dis-improving. And some (not all) of this dis-improvement is down to dairy expansion.
We have to be a key player in arresting that decline.
Considerations need to best protect the dairy sector’s performance in delivering economic and social sustainability, while also meeting the state’s climate / environmental sustainability requirements under legislation.
It is better to face this now in an agreed manner.
We welcome what the Minister for Agriculture calls a “mature discussion”, but the role of the farmer needs to be at the heart of any solution, and action must be simple, achievable, profitable and have win-wins at its core.
Dairy Industry Ireland is very much against the pitting of sectors against each other; but economic sustainability must be considered. The economic and social contribution of dairy to Ireland’s economy is enormous.
For scale, two 2020 reports put dairy at almost 10 times the size of our tillage industry in terms of contribution to the rural economy.
And while the narrative of ‘a spiralling livestock herd’ permeates, last week the CSO reported that total cattle numbers in Ireland have, in fact, been declining over the past three years.
Climate science
Furthermore, there have been climate science developments.
According to Professor Myles Allen of Oxford University — the key author of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — current calculations show that the impact of enteric methane (gas emitted from cattle mainly as burps and belches) is overstated in GWP100 (global warming potential) calculations.
Prof Allen has repeatedly advocated for change on this metric. Why is this not being factored in?
The programme for Government also included special recognition for biogenic methane recognition as part of a ‘Just Transition’ — a commitment signed up to by all parties. But where has this gone in recent debate and legislation such as the Climate Bill?
Agriculture is one of the only industries that can actually remove emissions, yet currently these are not being included.
This emphasises the need for the development on ‘carbon balance sheets’ for farms backed by the science and government.
But first the goalposts for farmers and industry need to stop moving, so we can clearly follow roadmaps like the Teagasc MACC curve.
It is vital that there is a consistent state position from the Department of Agriculture and all related state bodies and departments.
Inevitably some conflicts may arise. But in order to achieve our climate and environmental goals over the next decade and beyond, farmers and the industry need clear, funded, joined-up approaches and guidance from all arms of the state.
Conor Mulvihill is director of Dairy Industry Ireland
John Gibbons, An Taisce
After many false starts, it looks like we may finally be getting serious about tackling the climate emergency.
The EU has set the ambitious target of cutting emissions by more than half by 2030, with the upward ratchet on targets to accelerate until net zero emissions are achieved.
This needs to happen well before mid-century, as we are already almost out of time.
Hitting these targets will be tough but essential, since the price of failure is global climate destabilisation and the horrific social and economic consequences that will ensue.
The industry most exposed to climate breakdown and extreme weather is of course agriculture, for the obvious reason that it is almost entirely weather-dependent.
You would think therefore that Ireland would be working hard to reduce total agricultural emissions, rather than just tinkering with efficiency tweaks. You would be mistaken.
Take Teagasc’s 2027 Road Map for the dairy industry. It envisages milk output increasing by 1.5 billion litres a year, rising to almost 9.5 billion litres.
That’s an increase of around 18pc in our most emissions- and pollution-intensive form of agriculture, at the very time all emissions are supposed to be falling sharply.
Agriculture accounts for a third of Ireland’s total emissions, so if it fails to
act, all other sectors must hugely over-achieve to compensate.
Should we take every car off the road, ban all flights and ration home heating so the dairy sector can continue to expand with impunity?
Teasgasc’s expert scientists are well aware of this. But their organisation is directed by an 11-person Authority, of whom five, including the chairman, are dairy farmers.
There are no tillage farmers represented, nor anyone from the organics or environmental sectors.
Does this strike you as balanced?
Today, Ireland produces the most greenhouse gas emissions per euro of food output in the entire EU.
Thanks to major dairy expansion, by 2027, we will almost certainly have retained this dubious crown.
In December, an Environmental Protection Agency report on water quality found an astonishing 33-fold increase in the number of river sites where nitrate levels have increased since 2015.
There is no great mystery identifying the source of this surge in chemical pollution.
EPA director Laura Burke last October stated that Ireland’s ‘green’ reputation is “largely not supported by evidence”, adding that livestock sector growth “is happening at the expense of the environment as witnessed by the trends in water quality, emissions and biodiversity all going in the wrong direction.”
Reputational risk
This represents what the EPA calls “a serious reputational risk for the agri-food sector in Ireland”.
In business, as in life, reputation is everything
Like it or not, the ecological and climate footprint of intensive livestock agriculture is now under close scrutiny.
One major farming organisation recently rejected calls for EPA pollution licensing for large dairy farms, while working to undermine essential CAP reforms aimed at funding eco schemes and boosting organic farming.
Refractory leadership like this leaves agriculture at real risk of losing public support and becoming a pariah sector.
This is surely not the future most farmers want?
John Gibbons is volunteer PRO for An Taisce’s climate committee
