The merits of using AgNav to calculate your carbon footprint were discussed at the Irish Tillage and Land Use Society’s spring workshop on Don Somers’ farm.

Don revealed that he has already been approached by a company to use his AgNav figures in order to pay him a premium for the low-carbon grain he is producing.

This is only at an early stage, but Don feels that once one company starts paying a premium, others will follow.

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“If we prove the carbon footprint figures, we can get paid a premium. It might start off at €5/t or €10/t, I don’t know, but I would much rather be paid a premium for Irish grain than have these handout, one-off payments that are supposed to prop the industry up,” he said.

However, official figures are needed. This means as many farmers as possible need to plug their figures into AgNav.

Don already had his yield, fertiliser and other figures compiled from completing the Teagasc eProfit monitor so it only took him 25 minutes to put everything into AgNav.

His carbon footprint figures showed that his winter barley and wheat were coming in around 170kg CO2 eq/t, an excellent figure compared to international figures of 350kg CO2 eq/t. Early analysis shows that a lot of Irish grain is coming in at 200 to 250kg CO2 eq/t.

Don noted that these figures are for 2025 when his farm achieved excellent yields. However, he stressed that lots of grain data is needed.

If farmers and the industry are to stand over the claims of sustainability, the carbon footprint of all grain needs to be recorded.

Deirdre Doyle of Teagasc explained that the number of farmers using the service is growing slowly and joined Don in urging every tillage farmer to use AgNav.

“We need as many farmers as possible to try and get as much data as we can to back up our claims,” she commented.?