Beef farmers face culling hundreds of thousands of cows if proposals put forward by the Climate Change Advisory Council are implemented by the Government. The three scenarios outlined by the report show how a reduction of 15% to 53% in suckler cow numbers would affect climate targets.
Beef farmers face culling hundreds of thousands of cows if proposals put forward by the Climate Change Advisory Council are implemented by the Government.
The three scenarios outlined by the report show how a reduction of 15% to 53% in suckler cow numbers would affect climate targets.
The council outlines that the suckler herd is already in decline by 1.4% annually.
Under scenario A, if the current decline were to continue, the suckler herd would reduce by 15% or 152,000 cows by 2030. In this scenario, agricultural emissions would fall to 1.7% below 2017 levels.
Under scenario B, a reduction of 304,000 suckler cows by 2030 (30% of the suckler herd) would see emissions fall to 5.4% below 2017 levels.
Scenario C sets out the most severe reduction in cow numbers. This would result in 536,000 suckler cows, equivalent to a 53% drop in the current national suckler herd. Suckler cow numbers would drop to the same level as 1984 – the year the milk quota was introduced.
This would result in emissions falling to 10.9% below the 2017 level, the biggest reduction in emissions of all three scenarios.
It is notable that in every scenario, the dairy herd is “maintained at 2018 levels”.
The chair of the advisory council Prof John Fitzgerald stated that there is little room for dairy expansion in the future.
Fitzgerald told the Irish Farmers Journal that: “The half a million reduction [in total cattle numbers], scenario A, would not be adequate.”
He favoured either scenario B or C.
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