Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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126. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the way his Department will select the 50,000 farmers that will take part in the pilot scheme for the digital sustainability platform; and the timeline on the roll out of the scheme. [61374/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Teagasc in co-operation with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation and Bord Bia is building a new Sustainability Digital Platform to allow farmers to count carbon emissions and sequestration on their farms.

The Platform is a key pillar of Teagasc’s new Climate Action Strategy to support farmers and the industry to respond to the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Development of the “Platform” will require considerable research and development over the next five years by Teagasc and its partnering organisations.  

In establishing a gold standard ‘Digital Platform’, the ambition is that every farmer would:

- Know the greenhouse gas emissions for every part of their farm,

- Identify opportunities to reduce those emissions and capture carbon, and

- Keep good farm records securely online.

The Sustainability Digital Platform will be open to participation by all farmers, including existing clients and non-clients of Teagasc advisory services, private advisory services, and agri-food businesses.

I am hugely excited to see this new initiative rolled out and I know it become a key role in our climate ambitions. 

The vision is that most farmers will utilise the Sustainability Digital Platform through participation in the Teagasc SignPost Advisory Programme.

SignPost is a new targeted advisory service to accelerate action on farms in the areas of climate and sustainability. It is being made available to farmers on a voluntary basis and the defined services within the Programme will be provided free-of-charge. 

Teagasc is targeting to recruit 10,000 new participant farmers into the SignPost Programme  each year, with an overall target of 50,000 farmers completing the programme over the seven-year period from 2023 to 2029. This, in turn, is expected to deliver similar throughput for the Sustainability Digital Platform. 

Farmers can sign up for the SignPost Advisory Programme on the Teagasc website. Teagasc is also planning an extensive communications campaign to generate interest and motivation within farmers to participate in SignPost and the Sustainability Digital Platform.

Science is the ace up our sleeve when it comes to meeting our climate ambitions. Everyone in the sector is on a journey towards becoming more sustainable and, with important initiatives like from Teagasc, I am confident we can hit our targets over the course of the decade.