Farmers have been warned that efforts to reduce agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions and meet climate goals could become more difficult over the next five to 10 years as the focus moves away from carbon dioxide and towards methane.

Teagasc research officer Gary Lanigan has said that much of farming’s emissions reduction in 2023 has been the result of spreading less chemical fertiliser and switching out CAN for protected urea.

“The biggest story is the changing from CAN to protected urea. That has literally been a game-changer,” Lanigan told Gurteen’s Energy and Farm Diversification Show.

“After that, it is going to be on the methane side of the house, but getting a handle on methane is going to be much more difficult.

“We are doing the easy stuff at the moment which is reducing nitrogen. That’s great, that’s easy stuff. But the stuff that’s going to be coming along for the next five, 10 years, is going to be the really difficult stuff.”

The researcher stated that measures for reducing methane emissions can focus either on “animal reduction” or “what you feed the animals”.

Breeding lower-emitting livestock and rolling out methane-reducing feed additives are among the measures which could be taken to cut methane emissions.