Speaking at the Agricultural Science Association (ASA) climate change forum in Tipperary this Monday, Pat Murphy, Head of Environment Knowledge Transfer at Teagasc, said the role of the advisor is key to meeting our greenhouse gas targets."The role of the advisor is key in terms of regulatory policy, knowledge transfer, embedded transfer, support schemes such as GLAS, research and the market place," said Murphy, who included private company advisors as well as Teagasc. "The role across all of the toolkit of the advisor is absolutely key to achieving the outcome we want to see in the next 10 years in terms of GHG mitigation."
Speaking at the Agricultural Science Association (ASA) climate change forum in Tipperary this Monday, Pat Murphy, Head of Environment Knowledge Transfer at Teagasc, said the role of the advisor is key to meeting our greenhouse gas targets.
"The role of the advisor is key in terms of regulatory policy, knowledge transfer, embedded transfer, support schemes such as GLAS, research and the market place," said Murphy, who included private company advisors as well as Teagasc. "The role across all of the toolkit of the advisor is absolutely key to achieving the outcome we want to see in the next 10 years in terms of GHG mitigation."
The toolkit:
Raising awareness: The first job is for advisors to make themselves aware of the issues surrounding climate change and our targets. The advisors must "get the message across to farmers as simple messages like the fact that one dairy cow emits the same level of emissions as two family cars." They need to develop an understanding of sources, the three main gases and where they are emitted.Outlining the need for action: Farmers need to understand the impact of climate change. In a broader context the impacts of climate change around the world need to be understood. There are potential financial penalties down the line for Ireland not meeting its targets. Increased production "will be done in context of reduced emissions."If we’re going to be serious about reducing GHG emissions through policy, we should not tie our hands behind our back with a policy set to doom us to failure
Identifying opportunities at farm level: Teagasc have developed a carbon navigator to "promote uptake of win-win technologies. This will be included as key parts of dairy knowledge transfer schemes. 500 advisors are to be trained in using it."According to Murphy, this will become an opportunity to have real engagement with farmers on the challenge of greenhouse gas emissions and can be "followed up with clear advice to farmers as to how that change might be implemented in reality. Working with farmers in groups and getting a consensus among farmer clients has a role to play."
Target where it matters most: Murphy said we should focus on larger intensive producers because more output causes more greehouse gases. He said we should look at nitrogen efficiency, production efficiency and rapid adoption of emerging technologies. GLAS on more intensive farms where uptake was low is "something we are going to have to look at." Engage in policy formation and support its implementation: The likely outcome of greening was a "2% drop in greenhouse gas emissions, which is not a policy that is particularly effective. If we’re going to be serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions through policy, we should not tie our hands behind our back with a policy set to doom us to failure."According to Murphy the success of greenhouse gas emissions mitigation will be largely determined by the degree to which agricultural advisors of all types manage to engage farmers to address the problem.
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