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Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Brian Leddin: The Chairman of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Cahill, intended to chair the meeting. It is an initiative that has been led by his committee. It is certainly a very welcome initiative for it and the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action, which I chair, to work together. As I understand it, this is the first time the two committees have had a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Sitting suspended at 9.43 a.m. and resumed at 9.44 a.m.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Brian Leddin: Mr. Savage, who has just joined us, is very welcome. He is the co-founder and chairman of Moonsyst International. Before we begin, I will read out the note on privilege. We will have other witnesses joining us online at a later stage. Witnesses giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Desmond Savage: I thank the members of the joint committees for the opportunity to address them on the subject of exploring technologies and opportunities that may exist in the effort to reduce emissions in the agricultural sector. For the purpose of my submission, I shall focus on greenhouse gas, GHG, emissions from cattle. The principle points I wish to discuss today are, first, the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Desmond Savage: I said there is no cost-effective method of measurement. There are ways to measure. The likes of the Teagasc facility at Moorepark and UCD Lyons Farm in Kildare have invested in systems, including, for example, a green feed system which involves cattle going into a controlled environment and being monitored for four or five minutes. This is okay from the point of view...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Michael Fitzmaurice: How many of those factors is a normal farmer who is doing well considering at the moment?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Desmond Savage: I have provided a link to our company's website, where there is a detailed questions and answers section that describes how our technology can enable farmers to monitor their cattle better, especially with regard to rumen health. The rumen is the first stomach of cattle. People describe the rumen as a kind of bioreactor. When cattle consume grass or feed, it goes into a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Brian Leddin: I thank Mr. Savage. I am going to push things along because we have to finish the session at 10.30 a.m. We have half an hour and I have four members looking to come in. I propose that we take eight minutes for questions and answers for each of the members. I call Deputy Bruton.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Richard Bruton: I thank Mr. Savage for the presentation. I have three questions, the first of which is about all those methodologies he was talking about for improving herd performance. Are they not already embraced by the Teagasc list that covers genetics, feed, age, sward, animal health, slurry, fertilisers, early slaughter and all these matters? Teagasc has attempted to delineate what the policy ought...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Desmond Savage: I thank the Deputy. On the point about Teagasc and what it is doing, I have been to Moorepark a number of times and I have been talking to a number of people in Teagasc at Lyons farm and Grange. There is great work going on there. I am not going to try to describe all the work. There are hundreds of people doing great work in that space. The point I wanted to make...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Jennifer Whitmore: I thank Mr. Savage for coming in today and for his presentation, which was really interesting. I could not agree more with him when it comes to measuring metrics and making sure the right information is being used to inform decisions, and about incentivising farmers to do the right thing. That is an area in which we certainly have not been doing work over many years. I have a couple of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Desmond Savage: It is a good question. We provide a data set associated with individual animals. First you have data; when people start to look at them, those data become information; when you start to combine information, you develop knowledge and then wisdom. That is the progression. In accordance with our terms and conditions and the general data protection regulation, GDPR, all...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Desmond Savage: A few initiatives have started. We have an innovative partnership approved with Lyons Farm in UCD, which is starting next month on a trial. We have spoken to Tyndall and Moorepark and have some ongoing trials with NUI Galway and Grange. We are networked but it is at an early stage. Going back to my experience of seeing this in manufacturing, you get data integrity and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Matt Carthy: I welcome the fact this meeting is taking place. I apologise because I am at the Committee of Public Accounts as well, so I will be in and out of both. I thank Mr. Savage for his opening statement. When we talk about greenhouse gas emissions, there are three strands to the discussion: the global targets and ambitions that are agreed; the national implementation of those targets; and,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Desmond Savage: To address the Deputy's last point first, I am very confident, being involved in the sector and seeing the work ongoing, that, through technology, changes to peat practices, etc., reductions will be achieved. However, going back to the Deputy's first point, we really need to flip the metrics on their head. Pushing down national or EU metrics at the farm level means...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Brian Leddin: The Co-Chairman, Deputy Cahill, has returned. I do not know if you heard his reaction to that, Deputy Carthy. Before we finish this session of our meeting, I will add to Deputy Carthy's final question. A very interesting point has been made. Governments, not just in Ireland but all over the world, use the levers available to them to try to enact change across sectors in society. What I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Brian Leddin: For that we need very good technology and metrics at the farm level.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Desmond Savage: I am just monitoring what I can see. We are all custodians of the land of the planet. We are passing it on to the next generation. I am just trying to do my bit and get things going in the right direction. I have seen that when this is done right from a manufacturing point of view, benefits in the millions of euro can be seen. Ireland is very good at it. We have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Jackie Cahill: We need a comprehensive solution in respect of the issues we are facing. I hope that as a result of this series of meetings, we will be able to go to the various Ministers with concrete proposals for how we embrace the technology that is available and move things forward to ensure sustainable food production. That has become even more pertinent as a result of the war in Ukraine and the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Joint Meeting with Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action
Exploring Technologies and Opportunities to Reduce Emissions in the Agriculture Sector: Discussion (24 Mar 2022)

Mr. Michael Earls: We welcome the foresight of both committees to dedicate a hearing to see how technology can play a major role in reducing farm emissions. I am the managing director of EASYFIX. I am joined by my colleagues, Mr. Ronan Boyle, Mr. Niall Earls and Mr. P.J. Burke. EASYFIX is a Galway-based company whose focus for the past 25 years has been to provide innovative products...