It has been said if you want to hit a target, you should aim above it. This quote came to mind after the Government yesterday finally agreed to a target for a reduction in agriculture emissions.
he final figure of 25pc is almost a cliche of political compromise – it’s as if Charlie McConalogue and Eamon Ryan, exhausted after days of over and back on whether it should be 24pc or 26pc, just said, ah, let’s split it down the middle, like two farmers haggling over a pen of sheep.
No doubt it wasn’t as simple as this, with officials in both departments said to have agonised over the fine detail and its implications for the past number of months.
But what are its implications?
Well, the sun rose this morning over Ireland’s 135,000 or so farms, and little at ground level will seem to have changed.
As one official close to the talks put it, in many ways setting the target is the easy part – implementing measures to achieve it is where things get tricky.
The Government says it has a plan to reach the 25pc target, and there’s no doubt it has announced a series of measures that could cut emissions. These include reducing fertiliser use and changing the types of fertiliser farmers use, reducing the age at which animals are slaughtered, low-emission slurry spreading, increasing use of clover and multi-species grass swards and many more.
Progress is being made in some areas, although a drop in fertiliser usage this year is a result of soaring prices and increased regulation, while since 2010 the age at which cattle are being slaughtered has fallen by nearly two months and the majority of farmers are already using low-emission techniques to spread slurry.
Unfortunately, though, even if farmers were to meet the Department of Agriculture’s proposals set out to date, it still wouldn’t be enough to reach 25pc, assuming livestock numbers remain static.
Researchers reckon these measures might get the sector to 18pc, perhaps 20pc if everything goes to plan.
So further measures will be needed if agriculture is to get to 25pc. The department knows this and farm groups know it, even if they don’t want to hear it.
More difficult and politically toxic measures are being mooted in high-level industry committees established by Mr McConalogue over the spring.
A farm retirement scheme has been discussed, while a complex “cap and trade” model has been suggested that would assign emission production rights to individual farmers and allow farmers to trade their rights within the overall cap.
The use of feed additives that would reduce the amount of methane cattle produce is seen as the great white hope for many in the sector, with research suggesting cuts of up to 30pc are possible.
However, it’s simply too early to say whether these ideas will even become a reality, not to mind what impact they would have.
What has been missing from the debate over agriculture in recent weeks has been an understanding among the myriad commentators that farmers are not a homogenous group.
There is no such thing as a “national herd”. It will be individual actions on individual farms that will influence the sector’s emissions.
And, rather than the feared cull of this ‘national’ herd, there are many in the sector who strongly believe livestock numbers will fall in Ireland over the next decade, regardless of emissions targets.
Ireland’s farming population is ageing, the burden of farm regulation and red tape is growing more each year, farm supports are increasingly geared toward the environment rather than food production, bigger farmers are struggling to attract workers and plant-based foods are continuing to gain market share.
Sadly, come 2030, Ireland will likely be home to fewer farmers along with less livestock – a changed landscape that will no doubt play a role in reducing emissions without any heavy hand shutting down the sector.