This week, in conjunction with Agri Aware, the Irish Farmers Journal hosted 450 agricultural science students on our demonstration farm in Tullamore. The future of our industry depends on being able to attract young people into the sector. But in a highly competitive employment market, the sectors that can present the most exciting and innovative career paths will secure the best talent.

The number of young people entering the dairy sector in the past five or six years has brought life into it. But unfortunately for those attending our farm walk on Tuesday, this opportunity will be gone if warnings on dairy quotas come to pass.

As Jack Kennedy reported on Tuesday and covers in this week's edition, senior officials within the Department of Agriculture this week warned farm organisations that unless the dairy strategy group can come up with a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some form of a quota would be introduced. This is despite reassurance given to farm organisations just last week from An Tánaiste Leo Varadkar that dairy quotas were not on the agenda.

Abdication of responsibility

The warning amounts to a complete abdication of responsibility by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue and his Department – which now appears to be positioning itself solely as the governing body of the industry rather than part of it. Instead of bringing forward innovative solutions to climate challenges, the strategy is one of imposing the easiest, laziest and most damaging option: a production-linked quota.

Added to this, there is a continued policy in the Department to ignore the science. As we reported recently, there is now an uncontested body of science supporting the fact that calculating the contribution of agriculture to global warming on the basis of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions is flawed. The model over-calculates the warming impact of short-lived gases such as biogenic methane, which accounts for 66-70% of all agricultural emissions. The scientific consensus is that where biogenic methane emissions from agriculture are stable, the impact on global warming is neutralised.

It is worth noting within the Climate Act, there is a requirement for the Climate Change Advisory Council to take account of “relevant scientific advice including with regards to the distinct characteristics of biogenic methane” and in line with “international best practice on the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removal”.

In addition, there is adequate provision for the minister to revise a carbon budget where there are significant changes in the scientific knowledge.

Teagasc modelling

In this context, modelling presented by Teagasc during the meeting of the dairy stakeholder group on Tuesday is highly significant. We understand that the Teagasc work forecasts that, in the absence of any interventions between now and 2030, biogenic methane output from the national livestock sector would remain largely stable with just a 2% increase.

Therefore, based on the scientific data showing that stable biogenic methane levels do not contribute to global warming, why is the Department moving to introduce a quota on dairy cow numbers – the only livestock sector that can realistically return farmers a full-time income?

Long-lived greenhouse gases

Instead, the focus should be on how the Department of Agriculture can support farmers in significantly reducing the long-lived greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Reducing the level of chemical nitrogen used on farms is the key to unlocking this while also improving water quality and biodiversity.

Ironically, with nitrogen prices soaring and unlikely to fall back to 2021 levels in the years to come, the appetite for farmers to implement changes in this regard has never been greater. But achieving the reductions necessary will require the minister and Department to show innovation rather than simply going back in time to 1984 and using a quota system to either cap cow numbers or production.

Farmers require a policy and financial framework to support the rollout of new grassland technologies, including training on the establishment and management of clover-rich swards and multi-species swards, along with support to correct deficiencies in soil nutrients. The advisory model that has been used successfully within the Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advisory Programme should be rolled out to all farms.

Investment required

The focus on reducing long-lived gases does not negate the need to invest heavily in genetics, methane inhibitors and efficient beef finishing models in the years ahead in order to give the sector scope to further increase production while keeping methane levels constant and avoiding any additional contribution to global warming.

There is of course an irony to the fact that at a time when governments across the world are scrambling to maximise food production capacity, the Irish Government is threatening to cap output from one of the most environmentally sustainable dairy production models in the world.

Ireland has a duty to tackle the impending global food challenge by maximising the output potential of agricultural land. For as long as these challenges remain, the IFA is right to be calling for a suspension of this dairy group and the formation of a beef and sheep group.