A new €2 million international strategic partnership to support national climate action in agriculture has been launched by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue and Minister of State at the DAFM, Martin Heydon, who has special responsibility for research and development made the announcement today.
Funded by the European Institute of Technology (EIT) and the European Commission, ‘EIT Climate-KIC’ is Europe’s leading innovation community working to support the delivery of a climate-resilient economy and society.
EIT Climate-KIC will partner with public and private stakeholders in the Irish agri-food sector, led by the DAFM, to combine their international expertise on climate innovation with local knowledge and organisation to support the agri-food sector in mitigating and adapting to climate change.
In making the announcement, Minister McConalogue said that the new Climate Action Plan and the Food Vision 2030 Strategy have set a challenging agenda for the agri-food sector.
“Reducing emissions by 22-30% by 2030 and achieving climate neutrality by 2050 will require new and innovative approaches by everyone in the industry.
“I believe that this partnership with EIT Climate-KIC has the potential to bring new, innovative thinking across the sector, whilst supporting our ambitions and setting the sector on an accelerated pathway of climate action.”
Minister Heydon added:
“The specific commitment of over €1.6 million in research investment towards this strategic partnership with EIT Climate-KIC highlights my department’s commitment to co-funding innovative solutions to support climate action in the agri-food sector and society.
“I particularly welcome the ambition of the partnership to build a portfolio of actions, including trialling new practices and technologies, developing, and incentivising new business models, and improving citizen engagement.”
The strategic partnership will see EIT Climate-KIC work with stakeholders from public, private, non-governmental and higher-education sectors to develop a range of strategic and coordinated solutions on climate action that will be tested and demonstrated.
The partnership will initially map the Irish agri-food system to understand and position the existing public and private sector partners and their initiatives.
Further steps will then create a framework to connect and integrate existing initiatives and actors, and to identify and introduce new innovation actions across business, the public sector, and communities.
A key step will see the partnership identify opportunities to raise and deploy grant funding and private investment capital to support the innovation actions.