Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 13 December 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Recent Reclassification of Beef Indexes: Discussion

Dr. Paul Crosson:

To go back to carbon and the economics of carbon, every animal will have a carbon cost associated with it. The three main parts are: the emissions generated by the animals themselves, the methane emissions the animals emit; the emissions associated with the feed production, the nitrogen lost as part of nitrous oxide as part of the food production process; and slurry management. The important thing to bear in mind is that we are looking at carbon in terms of a shadow carbon market and putting a value on this carbon. Equally, however, we-----