Dr. Seamus Kearney, Signpost Programme, and Jonathan Herron, Teagasc Moorepark, joined Pat Murphy on this week’s podcast version of the Signpost Series webinar to discuss ‘Farm Specific Mitigation Strategies and Practical Actions to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Irish Farms’.
A questions and answers session took place at the end of the webinar, which was facilitated by Padraig Foley, Teagasc.
To register for future webinars visit:
https://www.teagasc.ie/corporate-events/sustainable-agriculture-webinars/
And for more podcasts from the Signpost Series go to:
https://www.teagasc.ie/signpostpodcast/
Hello my name is Mark Gibson and you’re listening to the podcast version of the Chagas signpost series a weekly webinar that promotes and examines sustainability in Irish farming good morning and welcome to this morning’s SOS webinar the SOS webinar is brought to you by chask in conjunction with dairy sustainability Ireland uh food
Drink Ireland skill and National rural network uh this morning I’m joined by paric Foley who will be taking questions and answer asking questions good morning paric morning Pat thanks for having me and speaking this morning I’m joined by Sheamus Carney Sheamus is signpost program specialist with chask and uh
Jonathan Hearn Jonathan is a postdoc researcher at at Mo Park you might just give us a an idea of what you do down at Mo Park yeah so the area which I’m working in it’s called life cycle assessment so it’s just methodology just there to calculate um environmental
Impacts um basically from ruming system so predominantly Dairy based so I’m I’m I’m um currently on fist project so just working on calculating uh environmental impact of dairy systems uh and how we can reduce them doing that with the signpost program you you’ll be looking at a couple of case studies uh of
Signpost Assessments sh Sheamus I think you’re up first this morning uh Sheamus you’re uh specialist with the SST program do you want to introduce the SST program to us a little bit yeah um I look I’ve come from a back around 25 years working as a a dairy advisor with
With uh Dairy clients um in heaven and Watford um so I’ve taken up the the role of training Development Special the sign post program since May this year so with the background to the sign post program is there’s over 100 farmers and spread throughout the the country all the different Enterprises have been
Incorporated into the SOS program where latest technology will be um implemented on those FMS to reduce greenhouse gas emissions uh the um inputs and the profitability will be measured on these firms see what kind of emission reduction that we can achieve on these firms and to use these in as Exemplar
Farms to spread the message to The Wider community so it’s it’s the kind of Lighthouse Farms to help all Farmers reduce their emissions and look supp the the title of my presentation is looking at as supp the Practical actions that uh Irish farmers can take G to reduce
Greenhouse gas Emissions on Irish Farms so it’s all about taking action to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions um and I suppose the what I’m going to look at this morning is just to break down the challenge facing agriculture uh I want to briefly look at the emissions by
The type of Enterprise at Farm level we’re going to put in place the building blocks that each farmer can Implement to reduce the greenhouse gas Emissions on their Farm we’re going to quantify the actions and briefly look at um what kind of effect these could have on a suckler
And a and and a store to wailing operation and I suppose the one thing with Farmers we’re very conscious of there’s a lot of anxiety and worry out there what does this mean for Farmers at ground level and as was put into context I was the big figure that has been um
Given to agriculture as of last week was we have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by between 22 and 30% by 2030 and that’s from a basis of the missions we had as a sector in 2018 and it it can be very um cause anxiety for Farmers but look this
Morning want to break it down bite into small little bite-sized chunks and as was just a picture of an elephant there like how do you eat an elephant you do it one one one bite at a time and it’s the very same of breaking down what this
Means to farm is a ground level so to put into context this screen here is just showing the red bear is just showing on average for the last two years for 19 and 20 that agriculture reduce its emissions by 1.3% per animal now to put into context when we break
Down the emissions that we have to meet in agriculture for the next five years at the end of the year the agricultural sector has to reduce its overall emissions by two and a half% a year between two and 3% two and a half% per year on average and 4 and a half% per
Year for the following five years after that now we’re not going to worry about Beyond 25 we go as far as halftime we go into the dress room H we get some water in and we take on the second half then after so for the first half we have to
Achieve a reduction on our greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 2 and a half% per year for the next 5 years and how is this measured it’s measured by the CSO so what I just put up here as a little snapshot and basically this figure here on the screen
For 2019 is showing that agricultur emissions within Ireland reduced by 4% in 2019 and what was behind that 4% reduction the big one was that fertilizer use in Irish Farms reduced by 10% now as part of that there was also so the starting to switch to protect the
Jewy which had a knock on effect in a positive way and also the switch to low emission story spreading from 2018 and these are based from 18 to 19 and 18 is the basis for emissions for agriculture going forward now line did reduce that year by 25% that would have a knock on
Effect of reducing this by about half perc overall and the dairy count numbers went up by about 2.8% um now the suck count numbers went down something similar if we didn’t look at 2020 the agricultural emissions went up 1.4% what was the driver behind that
Uh 3 and a half% more fertilizer use on farms da count numbers went up about 3.2% with the Su C numbers did reduce somewhat simar okay so fertilizer use has big bearing on what happens on Emissions on Irish Farms so to before we look at the actions maybe just to break down the
Kind of profile of the emissions at different farms uh in Ireland so first of all we’re going to look at a dairy footprint and what I put up here is H what a farmer gets back and his bore beia audit his feedback report and if we
Look at it here the light blue Bears is showing the emissions for the for the average farm from 75 to 100, in Ireland the other Bears here was the individual Farmer’s previous audit and his current audit so we’re going to focus on the blue Bears the average farmer and on
Average the average dairy farm in Ireland has 90 milking cows so the average dairy farm falls into this category here 43% of their total emissions come from uh animal digestion there is 22% of their emissions coming from the cows manuring at grass manuring in the sheds how they store the manure
And also how they spread the manure so 65% of the emissions come from pretty much related to the animal or meure management we’re looking at 16% from fertilizer 11% from feed 7% from energy use so 35% from uh inputs 65% from the cow so even by cutting these by uh by
Half we’re still only getting to about 17 18% of a reduction overall on Dairy Farms so if we look at suckler FMS the average suckler firm again we look at a suckler to waning store firm again the blue bear is the average for the Enterprise so 58% of Emissions
On suckler to wiing store Farms are coming from animal digestion at Farm level 31% is coming from the cow produced manure grass uh how the manure is stored and spread 4% from fertilizer use 1% from meal and 6% from energy use so almost 90% related to the animal 11%
On inputs so inputs alone aren’t going to to to get the reduction on on Dy stock Farms we have to look at uh the amount of cows per C per year when the heers are cing reducing animals in earlier age that’s what comes into account on the dry stock
Firms so maybe will look next at as what the Practical actions that farmers can undertake to reduce their emissions at Farm level so like any good house you have to put in a solid foundation so the foundation for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at Farm level first of all is
Soil fertility it’s about getting the lime the p and the K right okay if the the lime side fertility is correct and only 18% of Irish soils have are Optimum for Li p and K that will reduce naturally curring nitrogen from the ground um the second thing is we need to
Look at productive animals so cows dairy cows a good ebi um so getting more production from less cows uh and in relation to to suckler stock it’s breeding cows that will have a cal or cow per year H good weight gain earli or finish H which follows on to the beef
Farmer then as well is having healthy animals that they’re performing while they’re on the farm and to be cognizant of all times we need to we need to improve water quality and maintain it so we need to here to buff zone so no slurry within 5 m of any open drain um
And we need to have fences back 1 and a half MERS and we need to be careful with our timing of applications of slurry and fertilizer and we also have to improve on biodiversity from K keen’s talk last week is about hro management uh incorporating and maintaining trees and
Maintaining high value nature on these Farms when the foundation is right we didn’t start putting in the other next layer of blocks on top of it and the next layer of block is all about the type of fertilizer we use and we’ll come on to that now in a minute when we put
It out and how much we use it’s about having enough slurry storage that we put out the slurry at the right time and we spread it by the right methods it’s about keeping stock as long as possible at Grass Grass measuring and giving good quality grass during the summer during
The grazing season and when all these parts are together then we look at Clover and mixed species WS to establish them in existing and in New New Reeds to try and reduce the amount of nitrogen used at Farm level um but be cognizant of all time that when we talk about
Sustainability uh it’s social economic and uh social economic and um um environmental sustainability so the farmer is the the person at the center of the whole thing and farm profitability has to be increasing as we go so we just look at some of the actions and looking at animal
Productivity uh the economic breeding index uh for dairy C how does it work basically for every € 10ur increase in ebi it translates to more money in the farmer’s pocket 20 more profit per Co per year but at the same time by having a more efficient CES we can reduce the
Greenhouse gas emission at the footprint by 1% for every increase in ebi of 101 Euro and how does that work it comes true by having more mature hers higher mid Sal for cow and it also helps by lowering the replacement rates does bring the replacement rates back from uh
25 towards 18 to 20% so it’s it’s about getting the same output or a little bit more output with less animals and it’s very much the same principle with the maternal replacement index where it’s about improving health and survival it’s getting a c or cow per year uh earlier um finished animals
Shorter cing intervals so more productive type cows uh where you’re getting the same output with less amount of of inputs this the next B we move on to is looking at grassland management and how does that affect uh the greenhouse gas emissions um and and from from work done
On Research every extra week of grass can reduce the carbon footprint of product be that L um lamb beef or milk by 1% so every extra week of grass can reduce the carbon footprint by 1% and likewise with quality grass um this would be would be probably relevant
During the summer months uh grazing de appropriate good grazing covers of 13400 covers for the summer versus very strong grass um and of 2,000 covers uh that can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 15% per day now we’re talking about a period of maybe six to eight weeks
Throughout the year H where this could actually happen where the grass starts getting very strong where grass management mightn’t be top class so it could give an overall reduction in footprint over a full year of 1 to 2% now and I suppose the the knock on on
That is if by improving the the the grassland management and the quality of grass the cows are eating it will lead on to reducing the amount of meal that needs to be fed per cow and from workers Jonathan and Ln Shalo have done in more Park uh reducing meal feeding by between
50 and 100 kilos of meal per cow can reduce the overall footprint by 1% overall um and the other thing we look at is stage quality H higher DMD silage has lower fiber so lower DMD silage has higher fiber and higher fiber creates more methane so by having better quality
Soilage we can also lower our greenhouse gas emissions so the next area we move on to is fertilizer and the type of fertilizer has a huge bearing on uh what we what it does for our overall emissions as as a as an industry so protected Jura the
Protected Jura um is is um only one quarter of the emissions of can so it’s four times more environmentally friendly than can based fertilizers um so it’s lower in ammonia and it’s also lower in nitrous oxide um and from some case studies that Jonathan has put through
You see in Jonathan’s uh figures in the minute the protected Jia in a dairy farm going from 100% Can to 100% protected Jura uh it can reduce the overall Emissions on a dairy firm by 78% uh if we do the same principle on a b firm we’re looking at a 2 to 4%
Reduction overall the reason being the fertilizer use on B firms is substantially lower than dairy farms and these Farms here with 78% reduction is spreading 200 250 kilos of nitrogen per hectare per year um so I suppose you could say that a protected Ura I suppose is is the uh agriculture’s answer to
Electric care it’s a different version of the same product you get you the same end result but has way lower emissions from a farming point of view uh by reducing the fertilizers and next p to call uh by reducing fertilizer on Dairy Farms we can get a reduction of up
To 5% in greenhouse gas emissions uh on B firms the same principle again due to less fertilizer been used the reduction can be 1 to 2% okay so protected youra so the type of fertilizer has massive bearing first of all then it’s about trying to reduce the amount of
Fertilizer overall and we’re very cognizant on that with the price of fertilizer what it looks like for next year uh farmers will probably have to be more specific with when they put out fertilizer uh what they put out and the timing of the when they put it out so we
Come back to soil fertility and look I suppose the one thing is while availability of fertilizer could be a big issue next year the starting point is lime H but getting the lime p and K right we can release up to 80 kilos of nitrogen per hectare per year from
Naturally curring mineralization in the site that’s up to 60 units per per acre and to put into context um our national herd for 18 19 2021 is pretty much similar in size wise um and if I go back to 1974 uh the the national herd today 7.3
Million head of animals it was 7.2 in 1974 but the big difference in 1974 is we were spreading twice the amount of lime in 1974 that we are today and we were spreading it at a rate of one load of lime per year for every 60 livestock
Units so that’s two loads of lime for an average Dairy Farmer and one load of lime for an average dry stock farmer every year help cut down our fertilizer we did move on to Clover Clover and mixed species Wards can they can uh put in up to 100 kilos of nitrogen per year
H to replace synthetic or chemical fertilizer when we move on to slurry the timing of slurry spreading slurry with a spash plate in the summer we give you about three units per thousand gallons of uh nitrogen if we move that to the springtime we go from three to six units
Per thousand gallons and if we didn’t move again to low mission story spreading or environmentally friendly story spreading we can add another three units again so a splash plate in the summer will give you three units per thousand gallons a low emissions slow spreader in the springtime before the 1
Of May can give you up to nine units per th gallons which will help reduce our fertilizer and our footprint so briefly looking at in what kind of effect could this have on a dairy farm so if we just take a dairy farm up to
2030 uh the dairy farms from the BB of footprints are stocked at just under two cows per Hector so if we can increase nextra week of grass we get a 1% reduction in our footprint better quality grass from the summer could give another 1% cutting the meal 1% now there
Is a crossover effect on some of these ones here by increasing the ebi by 10 euro per year for the next uh nine years that has a knock on effect possibly of up to 9% reduction on the greenhouse gas emissions by cutting the nitrogen by 25% can give us another 5% reduction
Protected Ura is one of the big winds very quickly 7% low emissions slowly spreading 2% and by reducing the energy usage on the farm we’re talking about like a solar in that case could give us another 1% as well so there is some crossover effect on these
And in some cases it might be making a few less cows of better production potential uh there’s a possibility of 23 to 27% there on some dairy farms and coming back here to the stainability leaf developed by some of our colleagues in chugas h as supp the principle is
It’s about improving the breeding of the animal animal extending the Graze in season trying to reduce fertilizer through substituting Clover um mixed species SWS lime changing protected Dura low emission St spreading reducing energy use and after that then we look at trying to sequester more with likes of maybe incorporating some trees or
Improving hyro Management on farms and then it’s about trying to improve our water quality through the ASAP service if we do the same um exercise for a um so to wiing uh Farm um we’re looking at the average stocking rate from the bore beer carbon Footprints is
About 1.4 LS per Hector so if we could get an extra two weeks of grass it could reduce the overall emissions by 2% uh better quality grass for the summer and at a 1% and one of the big ones for the cing systems is by reducing the cing
Interval but and the average Farm in this scenario here is about 46 lives of units with about 25 cows by reducing the cing interval from 391 days at the 375 days can give a reduction of 2 to 3% in emissions one of the other big ones is
Moving the heers cing from two and a half years back to two years give another four or 5% reduction on emissions because at the minute only 23% of all heers cing on dry stock Farms are cing within the two-year of age Mark reducing fertilizer by 25% you give a 1%
Reduction 1 to 2% because of less fertilizer low emission spreading another 1 to 2% and reducing energy of 1% uh so possible reduction there of 13 to 16% but again the ones to go after have the biggest effect on our national inventory the quickest is less fertilizer protected Ura and low emission slowly
Spreading so to summarize what I’ve gone through there is as well the good thing is in order to lower greenhouse gas emissions it is compatible with good farming and profit for farmers and the core principle is all about getting the basics right so it’s about starting with
Our side fertility lime P andk it’s about breeding good healthy animals so it’s about um better rather than more it’s about improving our grassland management and trying to reduce our fertilizer use and I suppose to to to look at where can we go after the quick winds to help the overall emissions
Figure for agriculture for the next um five years uh and that’s the the first half of the match and that’s about looking at protected Ura that’s the the simplest switch is change the fertilizer type then it’s about how you spread your slurry spreading it in the spring and
With a low Mission SL spreading sufficient use of fertilizer and grassland management and I would also say that while we’re we don’t have to cut our national numbers from a national point of view on every Farm there’s marginal Cs on Dairy Farms there probably 5% of the lower cows in the
Farm wouldn’t really be missed from a production point of view who would take a lot of pressure off the system and when we talk about suckler Farms there’s 17 out of 100 cows on every suckler Farm on average throughout the country that don’t have a calf every
Year so it’s it’s Tiding up the the loose ends on somebody’s farm so maybe to finish up with a little shopping list for what you can do for 20 for 2022 but you’re a farmer or an adviser working in the industry I suppose the
Big areas we have to go after is liy um and as I said earlier on there liy is like geotermal for for agriculture it can release naturally cing nitrogen out of the ground it’s about using low emission sturry spreading and getting the sturry out in uh February March time
To get more use of our slurry next spring it’s about changing the protected Ura and by doing these we can get a bit of reduction on the fertilizer I think the price is going to drive some of that as well next year and it’s also about looking at the marginal cow or the
Surplus stock on farms where they could be putting pressure on Stocking rate by taking out of the equation to could help profitability help produce your fertilizer and get longer grazing season at gron as well so that’s where I finish up pet so I’ll hand back to you and I
Think Jonathan is going to go through specific case studies then after that okay thanks very much that’s I really clear messaging in that jamus uh you might stop sharing there if that’s okay and Jonathan if you’re ready to to share yeah I just want Jonathan’s getting
Ready there a question coming in and I suppose it alludes to I suppose one of the key questions around Dairy herd size the farmers you’re dealing with and I know most of them will have expanded over the last number of years but where is there where in general is it easy or
Is it possible to say where their heads are around animal numbers moving forward are they uh leveling out or are they some of them still uh intending to increase her size yeah uh very good question Pat in general I know from my own experience um
I was dealing with 150 farmers in um in the south of the country and the big expansion was finish Pat it’s about Tiding up the herds reading better stock it’s about uh better rather than bigger is is is I think the big message going forward okay Jonathan uh we’re seeing
Your slid show presentation if you want to go into display settings you might uh you’re not seeing it as an actual presentation no not yet just try it again there and if you up at the top of your screen you’ll see display settings I think there’s an option under there
To yeah and if you click on that and swap to present viw yeah perfect perfect perfect perfect okay thanks yeah so as my name is janton I worked in Chown in um more Park in in in Cork and uh today I’m just going first of all I’m going to change tact um a
Little bit from what Sheamus was talking about a bit of background into what is you know carbon footprint what how are GRE gas missions calculated um and then give some example firms so first of all I’m going to talk about life cycle assessment model uh
Give a bit of context to it and then the case studies yeah to just begin then so life cycle assessment so life cycle assessment it’s an internationally standardized methodology um and what it does essentially it calculates the environmental burden of a product process or service from the point of raw
Extraction up to the point in which you know it it’s uh disposed of um and this is different from the national inventry the way the N National inventry works it’s what happens within the country what life cycle assessment does it goes a step further with also account what
Goes into that product to produce to produce it so um there’s there’s there is a difference between life cycle assessment and the Infantry and this could be seen on the graph to your right so the Infantry U emissions would only calculate what’s in Gray so what happens
On Farm um but what Lifey assessment does accounts for the farm inputs your fertilizer your concentrate additional Forge that will be coming into the system your electricity your fuel as well as you know if you’re bringing livestock into uh your uh your your farm also um so for agriculture systems um
What’s commonly done it’s a cradle farm gate uh analysis and what that means essentially is it’s everything open to the point on on until the milk leaves the farm and uh the lry or um you know the Lambs or the cows go in the trailer
Or there’s wool sold as well up to the point in which in which the product leaves the farm essentially and within that then we calculate greenhous gas emissions ammonia nitrates and all that H to make it I suppose I suppose to communicate the I suppose the results of
The life cycle assessment you have to express it for with a common relatable unit so for lamb and for beef it would be per kilo carcass or per kilo liveweight for milk is per kilo fat and protein corrected milk and for both of those then we express per Hector and
That’s important because it acts as almost a proxy for total emissions so yeah so just just discuss briefly as suppose uh recent work we’ve done H so that life cycle assessment we talking about that’s what we use in Chas it’s what you use in bbid to calculate your
Your your farm carbon Footprints um and previously it was heavily Reliant I suppose on International default values and you know it was functional it worked it was the best available science to us at the moment at at that moment of time however um the default values International default values they come
From numer studies across the world not fully representative of our climate or our environment environment uh in Ireland and so you know um the department as well as Chas have invested in you know in research try to develop our own methodology to calculate emissions um and that that that research
Has Come On Come onstream uh through the form of scientific Publications um as well as that then this has been happening across the globe so as more science comes on stream the methodology um you know the recommended methodology changes and what you’re essentially doing is uh you’re continuously increasing are improving
The accuracy of um of the life cycle assessment model so just examples of this I suppose so previously um those all fertilizer types were treated the same in terms of emissions however we knew that there was difference in emissions from can protected Ria we just didn’t have the
Evidence to prove a to Expos the likes to EPA um research has been conducted uh in Chagas and has been accepted that you know there’s different emissions for can Ura and protected Ura and this has been accepted by EPA and it’s now in our national inventory and in our life cycle
Assessment models similar then for urine and dung um the NIT netics greater in urine and Dong was was deemed the same in terms of emissions however urine is far more susceptible to nitrogen last and that of dung um once again we needed evidence to show that to prove it that
Has been conducted and has been accepted in the EPA and National inventry so they’re also in um the the national inventry and our our um life cycle assessing models um on top of that 10 to you know outside of the farm I suppose the farm gate you know the stuff that’s
Coming onto your your farm your let’s say for example your fertilizer so the the factories that are producing fertilizer Through The Years they’ve become more efficient um you you know in producing a fertilizer they’ve also become more conscious about the emissions they’re generating and they have adopted um um strategies try to
Reduce emissions and that feeds into life cycle assessment because you use fertilizer uh to grow grass so that’s another benefit so what this means essentially so recent work that we’ve uh done between ourselves uh icbf and um and bbia uh We’ve updated boria’s life cycle assessment model uh to calculate car
Footprint of dairy farms as part of the SAS program so in the previous version of the life cycle assessment the average footprint was 1.1 um however just just just talk about the stuff that the updates I’m after talking to you about when you implement those um as along
With you know other um small changes what really what happens is that the 1.1 is reduced down to 0.99 so this is our new average carbon footprint for dairy farm in Ireland it’s basically a base change so the farming system hasn’t changed at all it’s just the way it’s
Calculated has changed and the reason it’s produced is because we’re making it more representative of the missions that are generated from Irish um farming systems okay so that’s where we’re starting at um so if if you are dairy farm that’s listened in today you can go on to your
I’m sure you got some form of communication that you can go on to BB online you can go in you can check your carbon footprint um to know where you are essentially where what to Benchmark yourself against I suppose your peers as other farmers uh and you know that’s that’s your
Starting point and how can we bring that number down essentially um in terms of the beef side of things um the any farmer that’s part of the S blast can go on they can check their carbon footprint for the beef they’re producing um the chus life cycle assessment models have been updated in
Line with what I’ve just talked about in terms of the dery um the bbia however is not at this at the same stage as uh as the dairy model however the process is underway and the next couple of months the the the the bbia beef LCA model will
Be up to date and will um be in line with the dairy model now so just going on then Al coming back to what sham was were talking about the mitigation strategies so um I would talk about the carbon footprint what essentially the carbon footprint is is an efficiency
Measure when you express an per kilo output it’s your it’s an efficiency measure so the more efficient you are producing that product the lower your carbon for is going to be um how you reduce your carbon footprint uh impacts your total emissions so if you’re improving I suppose the
Efficiency of your system there you know you’re potentially uh you know creating scope to increase your productivity um and as a result you know although you’re reducing your emissions per kilo output your total emissions H could remain static they could go up slightly or it could reduce slightly H to counteract
This that’s why we need to look at our absolute emissions we need to know the impact of different um management practices on both carbon footprint as well as your absolute emissions and this is very important because ideally at the end of the day what we’re trying to find are mitigation strategies that reduce
Both your footprint so reduce a your your footprint which is going to help the marketing of the product which you’re producing and your total emissions also so as as Pat was talking about and what sham was talking about I’ll be going through a couple of example firms
So just talk what Sheamus some of mitigation strategies that Shamus talked about I just implemented them onto example signpost firms and what impact they might have on their uh their car footprint so this is example of one dairy farm that’s part of the signpost uh program uh in 2019 so we say 2019
Because it’s um it’s the year before they started the signpost program so it’s where what their starting point was before they actually changed anything so this farmer was 0.96 so he’s already better than the national average of 0.99 so already good starting point um however talking to far there was a
Couple of areas which he he wanted to change and he was going to improve on so the first thing was he was already doing very well with the milk solids 550 kilo milk solids uh however he felt he go that bit further because it’s her it was
A very young herd and he was going to start selecting more for the mil constituents of your fat and your protein so he believed he was able to get to the five 40 kilo solid between that and and older herd H fertilizer um he was at the max of fertilizer he SP
250 50 kilos of nitrogen the majority of which was in the form of can as I said previously a can releases substantially more emissions than that of the likes of Ura and protected Ura and therefore it was trying to move away from the can to go towards protected Ura protect is also
Going to help the farmer economically it’s um you know it’s cheaper per kilo of nitrogen than than that of can at the moment also um in terms of manure management then uh the adoption full adoption of low Mission slurry spreading so your trailing shooting your brand spreading
Um and Sheamus has talked about this this is just implementing these on Farm what actually what actually happens in terms of your carbon footprint you’re you’re basically reducing your lines on synthetic fertilizer because you’re increasing the amount of nitrogen available um from the manure you spread um turn out day try to maximize
Um you know your diet in form of fresh grass and also reducing your Reliance on meal and what this essentially does is that by implementing those um as well changes this farmer was able to reduce their emissions by by approximately around 16 177% so 0.96 down to
0.8 second farmer then uh once again um starting at a really very strong point at 0.9 um so you know he’s nearly 10 he’s 10% lower than that of the national average so very good starting point um he was quite the farmer was happy where he was in terms of animal
Production he was getting 53 kilo solids he didn’t believe he could go much more without you know having you know I suppose a system drift you know more meal uh more you know more intensive system so he was happy enough with how he with his milk production uh milk the
Fertility 18% replacement rate he was relatively happy with that it could reduce slightly more but he was happy with it so the areas what he really wanted to Target was his fertilizer which was 100% uh can in 2019 and was 233 kilos uh uh per Hector so he was
Trying to reduce it by 20% and go 100% protected area and that’s how you achiev that as Shamus talked about is uh you know ground up you start with your SL fertility H get your indexes right get your pH right um then you go and you you know put in good grassland management
And then you also better manure management incorporation of clover they all contribute to less Reliance on synthetic fertilizer um this Farm as well one of the main things was turnout dates so um he was part-time turnout date up to the 20th of April try to try to get the cows
Out fulltime before that date and also trying to reduce Reliance on meal impact of this then is that that farmer was uh the carbon F been reduced from 0.9 down to 0.77 so once again another drop of that’s a drop of around 14% so just summary of what I just
Talked about there so life cycle assessment is the methodology to calculate Emissions on Farm uh as well as other indicators if you wanted to calculate ammonia nitrate leion uh as well as other indicators that could be done through life cycle assessment H the method has been updated
Uh as more uh researches come on stream uh Irish research at that to make sure that um the numbers which we are um providing are more accurate to the actual assistance which which we’re we’re measuring um there need to be continuous focus on efficiency based measures and that the solutions need to
Be adopted quickly to get you know to be rewarded or to be credited in in the National inventry so um the efficiency based measures you know the reason we focus on these is yes it’s going to reduce your emissions um per output and it’s going to reduce your total Farm
Emissions but it’s also H going to improve the economic performance of the farm also which is a benefit to the farmer um there’s also a number of uh new suppos mitigation strategies being tested out uh within chagus as well as other research institutes um they haven’t been on they’re not on stream at
The moment however they are in the process and they will be available to Farmers uh to further reduce their emissions in the future so um that’s all I have for you um thank you for listening and any questions more than happy to answer okay thank you Jonathan so we all
Could turn back on our screens um I suppose just a question for you you you looked at some some of the uh I suppose issues that that are being assessed that have uh shown to have uh maybe a lower impact than was originally thought from from uh basic tier one inventories are
There any other elements of uh greenhouse gas emissions that are under investigation that have some possibilities in the same light and are there some that maybe are going to lead to higher levels of emissions being shown yeah there’s actually it’s very active at the moment with in chugas so
Um as supp to start with there’s you know there’s a lot of work going on with methan at the moment so at the moment we’re using international methodology to calculate methane um you know we want we want to make that more representative to grass-based diet that we have which
Isn’t what is coming common around the world which the numbers which we’re using are based on um so yeah there’s research been conducted in in Chas more Park using the Green Feed uh machines I think my colleague Ben har was actually on this webinar a couple of um couple
Months ago discussing them and what that essentially is is we’re trying to derive our own methodology to calculate methan um and what we’re What preliminary results are find is that we are slightly overestimating mean um with our current methodology particularly in the springtime we’re going what we’re seeing
Is we’re seeing a seasonal effect on Ethan other areas other areas we’re looking at manure management new emission factors Irish admission factors for your management for lime application um and there’s also working car sequestration also okay paric I’ll hand over to you sometimes typos can give us interesting questions because we have a
A question I don’t know which of the lads are going to answer it in relation to the National fairy her far maybe there’s a silver bullet in there somewhere or fairy dust that’ll solve a lot of the problems that um I guess one of the main ones that’s coming
Up is around the 1% reduction Shamus that you mentioned as regards 1% per per week um in the the increase in the the grazing period where one of the main questions is what and period is your your current calculation on or um where you moving forwards Jonathan you mentioned movement to being having
Everything out before the end of April and so what’s the basis there yeah well I suppose now por from the the research done some firms might have a six month grazing season they might extended one more week other firms could have an eight month gra and season extended
Another week extending the week is is where you’re um raising better quality grass uh versus higher fiber silage and you’re also creating less slur in the shade that has been respread Again by a slurry tanker so regardless of your your your current time frame if you can get
Another week onto it it’ll feed through in the figures at about 1% reduction for extra week of grass now some farmers will probably push as far as they can go and stocking rate will be the biggest determinant on that one okay Jonathan there was a a number
Of questions there as well for you just around a lot of what you’re looking at our mitigation strategies um and that seems to be where a lot of research is based just on carbon sequestration when are we going to see similar figures and see those Incorporated in models that
You’re working with yeah so there’s I’m sure it’s been talked about here before uh the carbon Observatory that’s been rolled out within Ireland um you know they’re going around different sites and they’re looking at different effect of different management practices and how that affects carbon sequestration because we don’t have the data available
To us we know that the ground is sequestering carbon uh it’s we need to validate that we need to have solid numbers on that to implement them into life cycle assessment um methodology and and from there implemented into National inventry so it’s a long-term project uh carbon sequestration is a long-term
Process um but eventually next couple years we should have good data available to us that shows that the effect of you know grazing the effect of uh silage harvesting the effect of receding and then also pet lands as well how that effects carbon sequestration and once we
Have that then we can come up with a methodology that can be certified then we can Implement into it but it’s it’s only it’s only starting at the moment and it’s going to take a couple years it’s a slow process you’re you’re on a rooll Jonathan while you’re on a rooll
LCA for greenhouse gas emissions for Hill Farms um and also for say B finishing systems store to B finishing systems um when will we see them on coming stream yeah so what we what we plan on doing actually is H um so at the moment the only way to calculate your
Caron footprint is if you’re signed up for bbia you could could use an external tool from like of UK or France and all that but AUST what we’re trying what we’re plan on doing is to develop a tool um that covers dairy sheep uh beef and
Tillage um that a farmer can go into and ADV visor can go into you can put in your numbers and from there you can you can calculate your C now that’s once again it’s it’s we we’ve started the process um but that’s what essenti what we do because there is a demand there
People want to to know where they’re starting um yeah okay do you use H gwp 100 or gwp star and which and why and we back to you then James yeah no that’s a good question yeah so g p star um you know it’s it’s it’s very topical at the
Moment it’s just it’s it’s treating methan as if it’s a circular gas which it is GOP there far more correct than GP 100 um the problem is trying to implement that at a farm level is difficult you know you can Implement GP star at a national level because we have
Data for it um to calculate GP St you need 20 years data because it’s all retrospective to where you were 20 years ago at a farm level do we have good enough data to know what Pro production system you had 20 years ago it’s it’s it’s difficult to implement at Farm
Level so at the moment is GP 100 I 100% agree with go St and should be implemented at National level implemented at a farm level is it’s difficult Sheamus um have there been any developments or anything any research that you aware of Just Around ammonia emissions from open tanks and maybe
Having shelter bels upwind from them um I guess a number of questions coming in on Agro forestry and just the use of um shelter bels for this question in particular on reducing Ammon emissions but also around um increasing the the grazing period and AGR forestry so two questions kind of tree
Related the figures I put up the pro is it’s just looking at extend the grazing season by a week they’re not going to affect it has in the greenhouse gas emissions now I know you’ve had presentations before where the shelter BTS can extend the grazing season with
Certain types of stock so the longer we can extend the grazing season the more positive benefit we’ll have on it um in relation to the open tanks um I suppose the emissions from the open tanks are it’s coming from the ammonia being released um it’s a part of the ammonia
MEC it’s a small component of it but it will have a big effect for individual Farmers uh that they would have to cover them I think by 2027 from correcting that one p there on the year that they have to be covered by and I think there’s potentially some uh likelihood
Of of support for for tree tree planting and shelter belts around uh uh in the next cap so we’re hopeful that something will come out there okay H Sheamus this one is definitely for you um look lots of compliments on the The Clarity of the presentation and the clarity of the
Measures that are there how do you propose on getting this information out to advisers and from advisers on to Farmers and ground and it’s obviously a lot of work to be done in that there’s yeah and as was my my role pork is a training development specialist to help
Train our own advisers in chugas we’re working with the ACA as well we’re also working our industry Partners to try and uh get the shift from like a can Jura incorporating more Clover into the swords reducing the protein in the meal uh trying to improve side fertility so
We’re we’re kind of hitting the the ground running at the minute uh the one thing I would say is there’s almost 400 people on the call today Park so what I would like to ask everyone on the call if you can tell five other people practical implications that they can
Undertake on their farm and get them to tell another two or three people each we can we all have a role to spread positive message um because the one thing is I think actually farming is going to surprise the country that it will meet submission targets especially
For the first five years um I think what we have been asked to do if if everyone puts their shoulder to wheel is very doable I think a lot more doable than 300,000 electric cars by 2025 um from the transport sector um but that is the
Role we have poric and I know Shan cab communication specialist is also helping try to get a message out there through the the media um in con with our manager tomw shame is giving people homework on a Friday evening that’s not on absolutely yeah yeah be ambitious
Jonathan back to you on the global warming potential um few questions in on why you need 20 years data if you could just elaborate on that a little bit yeah yeah yeah so with the GP St you’re treating methan as a circular gas so it’s you know if if the natural her
Remain the same it’s the same carbon being circled uh carbon goes into grow grass Co the grass turns to methane and then that goes back down and the form a CO2 back to grow grass SS and the cycle is uh said to be 20e cycle um so
Essentially why we need that is that let’s say today is you know we’re in 2021 if in 2001 uh we have the same number of animals H than we have today it’s essentially the sact same carbon uh being circled around so there’s no uh additional warming caused by those
Animals being on um present on the farm um it’s it’s just because it’s it’s the life this life cycle of of methan that’s the reason why you need 20 years data we need to know has the her Chang within that time period okay good stuff that’s of Praise
Coming in for the two presentations guys and here’s one we’ll throw at both the I guess zero grazing has become a more common and one have you got it included in any of your lcas and two um is it helping to kind of increase the the sequestration because you can get access
To the grass all year round similar to extending the grazing or for a longer period not necessarily all year round but similar to extending the grazing like what you had chance yeah like um Ser gra grass can be implemented in LF very easy you just change data from from
Grass Solage to Fresh grass because that’s that’s that’s what it is H in terms of carbon sequestration they just research going under there is research on the way on the effect of cutting grass how that affects uh carbon sequestration I can’t say here now today what is actually what exactly it is but
Um it is going to come on stream in the next couple of years what impact it does have as was comment that one the big thing with the with with zero grazing it’s important that the overall stocking rate like a stocking rate have 2.4 CS per hectare you need to be growing over
14 T of grass across the whole farm so that’s the the fundamental force of all don’t Overstock the whole Farm but as well as that look once you start going over three and a half cows per hect in a milk and block it’s getting fairly intensive then at that stage so it’s
Because and the cows end up being inside a lot more of the year so is the overall stocking rate no more than 2.4 and probably the milk and platform even with the zero grass brought back in been around maybe the three to three and a
Half mark up to over push things and is there a concern in relation to that that you have a lot more slurry and slurry uh tends to be to have more both ammonia emissions and uh uh greenhouse gas emissions than deposited urine and and uh feces on directly onto pasture yeah absolutely P
Because you you are kind of increasing the indoor period which is create more greenhouse gases but as well as that like when we’re on about the the the um the sustainability it’s important the farmer sustainable too and zero grazing does create more work for the farmer so
We also have to be very cognizant of the farmer that we don’t push the farmer too hard question sorry yeah there uh a question there is there any studies on carbon sequestration values of hedges in in in uh particularly Hedges of different compositions yeah not um CH
Down in um Johnson Castle are doing a good lot of work down there in terms of carbon sequestration on hydros um and it’s actually really good what they’re doing they’re using satellite imagery to calculate the lighter technology they’re uh calculating the density of HED RS or maybe scrub areas and from they’re able
To determine how much carbon is there and how does that change over time once again it’s not at the stage where it can be implemented like actual validated methodology to implement that LCA basis and National Infantry basis is not fully there yet but the research in terms of
HED R is it’s well underway yeah something sorry s go ahead yeah big sequestration is look as suppose if the discovered that we are sequestrating um a certain amount um we just say we’re starting with 23 million tons of carbon dioxide equival just say for sake it’s a
Million tons we starting at 22 million tons it’s not like the million tons we’ve discovered that we sequestering comes off what we have to reduce okay so the sequest sequestration will help the farmers but it’s not the Silver Bullet to help us reduce the emissions we still
Have to work to get this the lium soil fertility switched fertilizer use and in the part of the climate action Bill a plan for 2021 it’s it’s it’s predicated on 65% of all can being spread ased JY by 2030 that we spread 90% of our low of
Our slur by low emission slory spreading and that farmers in general reduce their fertilizer by 20% by 203 they’re three of the big things are in the carbon action plan for 2021 and a lot of our figures are being based upon so sequestration will help us long term but
As an industry we need to make the move and start creating actions at a huge level throughout the whole country to move the doil and to show that agriculture is going to reduce its overall emissions help improve possibility for Farmers there a question there about the fertilizer prices in in
In the next in the coming year and how farmers are going to to cope with with the the issue of of nearly ATT trebling in in in nitrogen prices in in particular and and what was opportunity that gives you to try and get messages
Out there in terms of how to to be more efficient what are going to be your key messages to you to to what I supp the key message first of all Pat is to to to M the slurry and the slurry rather than going out just because you can on the
12th of January in some cases maybe to hold off until February and to use the slurry to replace the first round and I really seen in my own area last year the first round fertilizer was very much replaced by uh slurry H in the form of um the low Mission slurry spreading and
Two and a half thousand gallons of slurry with a low Miss Mission slur spreader in February March period can replace 23 units nitrogen that’s your first round so that’s the the important thing first of all is mining the slides it’s like liquid gold that’s why we need
To start treating it like at this stage the next thing then is um prota at the minute of about 20% even though prices are gone ridiculous at this stage is still 20% cheaper than can equivalent on a unit of nitrogen basis so definitely make the switch and you can’t expect the
Supplier to have the pleed Ura in the air today you go to buy so the task I would set to anyone on this morning is get their Farmers to start looking for tea now because the industry will get it if the demand is there the demand is
There they won’t have it in when you need it and it doesn’t store long term over the winter period and then it’s it’s it’s it’s been it’s tailoring um the amount of fertilizer so it’s it’s reducing a little bit throughout the whole year and I know when the questions
Come in there 25% reduction is too much askir farmer it is absolutely but we’re talking about the soil fertility right and over time getting the lime right first of all for those have the so fertility right dir incorporate Clover mixed species swords that that would help reduce fertilizer over time a 10%
Reduction in fertilizer on a dairy farm can reduce emissions by 2% 10% is very doable we did it in 90 yeah there two two sorry John you want to add to that no like just of my stuff that the work I’ve been doing with life cycle assessment the biggest
Reduction that that can be achieved is just a straight switch from fertilizer types is perspective por a switch from 100% kind 100% proted jurea is the same as cutting your fertilizer by 40% huge huge games there’s another related question there in in in and it’s asking about the
The issue of blending of of uh protected Ura with phosphate and I think that’s a that is a no-go area uh but I think there’s there’s work being done on the the emissions from some of the high PK compounds Jonathan with it and the fact that some of those are actually lower emitting
Than than your can as well exactly yeah there’s they’re doing research sorry you did ask me that earlier on they they are doing work so the work we’ve done so far on fertilizer it’s for can 27% nitrogen protected Dura and just normal year what they’re doing now is looking at the
Emissions from compounds you know the lik year 10 1020 18612 and even your P your pnk um uh fertilizers as well and yeah when we get them on stream uh we should see another reduction yeah I think the initi the initial findings are that that the uh losses from from those
Compounds are less than from yeah so it’s they can become part of the solution yeah there’s a nice few questions there just around um I suppose the sentiment or two two trends of thought one is that Dairy and beef consumption will increase the demand will be there for these luxury proteins
For decades to come as it’ll continue to increase um why would we let other countries uh produce it at a less efficient uh production level than ourselves and the other train at all is reduce the her reduce the problem or reduce the herd and pay Farmers more for
Their product and just to comment on that guys yeah I was com in there on that one look I put into context from a daily point of view uh our footprint is about uh roughly a kilo of car a per kilo of milk produced uh internationally
It’s closer to 2.9 so about a third almost about a third of the the international figure H be for one of the lowest carbon Footprints again within the EU H and I suppose when when when um people talk about replacing what you eat in your diet they use National figure so
Rather than saying you shouldn’t be eating meat or milk what they should be saying is you should eat Irish meat and milk that’s what they should be saying first of all we will lay low way lower footprint as the big issue is we’re part of the EU the EU is about 10% of
International emissions overall um EU wants to be Best in Class they’ve set a target of 55% reduction by 2030 as part of that the Irish government has set a reduction of 51% for the economy and agriculture has been built into that at 22 to 30% that is the bigger picture we
Cannot change that’s policy um the sentiment I wouldn’t disagree with it but as was we have to work within the framework Pro that we have to work with it jonan do you want to add to that yeah um so yeah they’re referring to carbon leakage and it it does happen you know
If we don’t produce it and the demand is going to go up somebody less efficient is going to fill that Gap and total Global emissions probably go up however as sham has talked about we are tied to reduction ofnational emissions and we have to be seen to
Um to achieve those you know and you know there’s possibility we can maintain our production uh increase production but we have to do so in the more carbon efficient manner um that’s that’s what we need to do I sorry yeah go ahead no we’re go no no I think we’re we’re we’re nearly
Hitting our our our time so I’d like to thank the two speakers for absolute Clarity in in in the messaging I think it was really clear and uh Jonathan I think your update on on kind of the the research that’s coming through in terms of the the level uh and and the
Representing of the research that’s been carried out by a lot of your colleagues was really clear and and really welcome so thank you very much uh for that uh next week we’ll be back and we’re joined by colleagues from from Abby in Northern Ireland uh uh donad Dudi and and Russell
Adams looking at uh some of the initiatives that they’re looking at to uh manage the risk of of P loss from slurry in Northern Ireland where it is a major part of their environmental problem slightly bigger than ours but we have a lot of it as well so I think
It’ll be a really interesting presentation from from the two researchers would have to be so thank you very much again for for joining us this morning thanks to our our presenters uh thanks to to uh uh Andy Boland and Devon marah uh our production team uh and until next
Week you’ve been listening to the podcast version of the Chagas signpost series The Weekly webinar that promotes and examines sustainability in Irish farming don’t forget to join us live every Friday morning for our latest webinar for more visit Chagas and you can also rate review And subscribe to the sign post series on
Apple podcasts Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from I’m Mark Gibson and thanks for listening