Dr. Karl Richards:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to present Teagasc’s views on the key barriers that may prevent Ireland’s agricultural sector from meeting its 2026-30 climate change targets. The Teagasc climate action strategy was launched in late 2022 to support farmers and the industry in responding to the climate challenge. The strategy increased resources devoted to climate- and biodiversity-related research and knowledge transfer. The strategy has three pillars, namely, the signpost advisory service, the Teagasc climate centre and the AgNav decision support tool, which was developed in collaboration with Bord Bia and the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation with support from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

According to the provisional inventory estimates for 2024 by the EPA, agricultural emissions have reduced by 4.6% since 2018. The emissions reductions have been mainly driven by reductions in nitrogen fertiliser use, increased use of protected urea and a decline in animal numbers, which has continued into 2025. Fertiliser use in 2024 and 2025 has increased due to the reduction in the cost of fertiliser relative to output prices.

In 2023, Teagasc published the latest marginal abatement cost curve, MACC, for the Irish agricultural and land use sectors. Within the agricultural MACC, we have identified 16 proven scientific technological measures that can be adopted on farm to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. We looked at ambitious and very ambitious levels of measure adoption. We coupled the technological measures with three projections of how agricultural activities may develop to 2030. These three sets of activity projections were: the most likely; a lower level of activity; and a higher level of activity. Our analysis highlighted that the very ambitious level of adoption of the technological measures is needed to remain within the allocated sectoral ceiling of 202 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The key technological measures in the agricultural MACC and the very ambitious adoption levels from 2018 to 2030 include reducing the age of finishing cattle from 26 to 21.6 months by 2030; reducing fertiliser use from 408,000 tonnes to 287,000 tonnes by 2030; changing the type of fertiliser to protected urea, rising from less than 1% of the straight nitrogen used to over 95% in 2030; increasing the dairy economic breeding index from €190 to €240 in 2030; and increasing lime use from 1 million tonnes to 2.5 million tonnes by 2030. Diversification is also incredibly important. Diversification of agricultural practices that we included in the MACC are: increasing organic farming to 7.5% of the utilisable agricultural area, UAA; achieving our afforestation targets of 8,000 ha per year; and switching 156,000 ha of grassland from animal agriculture to producing feed stocks for anaerobic digestion.

There has been good progress made on the implementation of some MACC measures, such as organic farming, reduction in nitrogen fertiliser use and the adoption of protected urea, while the launch of the national biomethane strategy should support the development of the anaerobic digestion, AD, industry in Ireland. This progress needs to be maintained and further accelerated. Progress on the implementation of other key MACC measures has been slower and will have to be accelerated over the period 2026 to 2030. For example, lime use has remained static at 1 million tonnes per year, the age of finishing cattle has increased to 26.5 months in 2024 and afforestation rates in 2024 were 1,573 ha compared to the target of 8,000 ha per year. The growing of grass for biomethane and the use of AD digestate to replace chemical nitrogen fertiliser needs to be accelerated.

Teagasc has expanded its research capacity through the Teagasc climate centre, strengthening our mitigation science and refining the national greenhouse gas inventory across methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. The centre has also established significant research facilities to support the research programme. The MACC incorporates a pipeline of emerging technologies. Some, such as methane-reducing feed additives, are expected to deliver in the second carbon budget period. We have increased our capacity to measure methane emissions from cattle and our current research programme focuses on evaluating the efficacy of feed additives in cutting methane emissions and developing slow-release delivery mechanisms for feed additives; assessing how feed additives influence methane and nitrous oxide emissions; developing manure additives to reduce methane and ammonia losses; and designing and testing new low-emission fertilisers. This research will produce practical, evidence-based measures for adoption on farm level.

Teagasc has strengthened knowledge transfer support on climate action and the implementation of MACC measures through both the free-to-farmers signpost advisory programme and the signpost farms programme, which demonstrate the adoption of MACC measures.

The signpost advisory programme, using AgNav, has prepared over 16,000 farm sustainability plans where farmers have voluntarily self-selected MACC measures to implement on their farms. During the MACC launch we indicated that while knowledge transfer is important for the adoption of new measures, policies and incentives are also needed to achieve the ambitious levels of adoption required to deliver on the sectoral target. There is a need to urgently accelerate the on-farm adoption of the 16 measures through policy development, supply chain and Government initiatives that incentivise farm adoption. The carbon farming framework may be one mechanism to incentivise farmers if it is sufficiently attractive to farmers.