Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The compilation of the agricultural greenhouse gas inventory is a matter for the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. As part of this process, the EPA determines the total amount of methane, N₂O and CO₂emissions generated by the aggregation of all farms. The EPA takes activity data, for example, total animal numbers by category or fertiliser sales data and applies an emissions factor to determine total emissions. Carbon measurement at farm level will become ever more important in the context of the recently agreed sectoral emissions ceilings of a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for agriculture and as a mechanism to demonstrate environmental ambition at farm level.

Through the Bord Bia sustainable beef and lamb assurance scheme, SBLAS, and the sustainably dairy assurance scheme, SDAS, introduced in 2014, we have a solid foundation on which to build. To date, more than 300,000 carbon footprint calculations have been completed. The Bord Bia quality assurance audit process for beef and dairy farmers facilitates the collection of the relevant farm management data required to complete a carbon footprint calculation via the sustainability survey.

The Department’s animal inventory and movements, AIM, data is utilised to generate an inventory of all animals on a farm for each month of a production year. Weight gain per animal is derived from a herd’s average daily live weight gain, DLWG, figure which is provided by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF, to Bord Bia. Both models generate a result by tracking all the greenhouses gases emitted as a result of the farm practices required to produce 1 kg of output, that is, "1 kg of fat and protein corrected milk" or 1 kg live weight gain.

These emissions can be categorised into emissions from: the digestion of feed; manure management; fertiliser use; concentrate feeding; and electricity and machinery use. The emissions are summed up across the beef or dairy production system and divided by the output to generate the carbon footprint.

The carbon footprint results are then communicated to members of the schemes via the farmer feedback report. To date, more than 5,000 farmer feedback reports have been generated and dispatched to SBLAS and SDAS members.

Since 2020, Bord Bia has collaborated closely with Teagasc and ICBF to improve the data collection, methodologies and accuracy of the beef and dairy models.

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