Research is underway to calculate the carbon sequestering potential of Irish farms – but the ability to calculate accurate figures of the amount of carbon that is sequestered on individual Irish farms is still some distance away.
This was a key message from Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) National Environment Committee chairman Paul O’Brien.
Speaking to Agriland earlier this week on Wednesday (June 2), O’Brien explained:
“The unfortunate thing is we are going to be a good few years away from having a real quantity of figures that we’ll be able to stand over.
“The reality is that the national agricultural soil carbon observatory was set up last November.”
Sequestering research
The chairman noted that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has allocated funding to Teagasc to conduct research on farms to produce figures on carbon sequestration. However, he warned:
“Unfortunately, 2021 will be a base year for research. The flux towers will be up measuring, they’ll be doing the core testing and they will be quantifying the amount of carbon in land at the moment.
“Then, in order for us to be able to prove that we have a carbon sequestration ability, we then need for that to be stood over a period of time,” he said, adding that having data that can withstand international scrutiny and peer review will be key.
“We are going to be a number of years away from being able to give farmers a real figure of how much potential carbon sequestration they have on their farms.”
Continuing, O’Brien was optimistic about the potential that’s there, noting that, on an international level, an Australian farm company had sold carbon credits to computer giant Microsoft for $500,000 earlier this year.
He stressed, however, that farmers must be rewarded for carbon sequestration.
Turning to the Climate Bill going through the Oireachtas at present, O’Brien outlined the IFA’s focus on this, noting that, as things stand, the bill does not account for carbon removals through sequestering in its current wording:
“We’ve highlighted to the Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action that any future budget under the Climate Bill has to take into account removals – once carbon can be proved to be sequestered.
“A budget has to work both ways,” he stressed – both for carbon being emitted and sequestered.
Sequestering recognition
Noting that, at present, farmers are not being rewarded for the sequestering that is already occurring through hedgerows, grasslands and bogs and the matter is “being bypassed in the whole debate”, the IFA environment chair described the situation as a problem.
“There’s a science lag at the moment and we are unfortunately in a scenario where we are waiting for the figures that we believe are there [to be proven beyond doubt],” he explained.
“We produce something that’s absorbing carbon the whole time – the whole process of photosynthesis – CO2 is sucked in from the atmosphere and O2 is produced. We are going back to national school stuff here.
“The reality is we all have knowledge that this happens – but it’s to get the real quantitative figures that farmers can then use and then look – if they have a figure, will agriculture be allowed into a [carbon credit] trading scheme then at that stage.”
“We’re putting our trust in Teagasc to come up with that research and come back to us. It was disappointing that other countries are able to quantify that ahead of us.
“We believe that we have a good news story, massively able to sequester a lot of carbon and once we can prove that, then that will help to change the whole debate I believe.
“Farmers should own their carbon sequestration ability once it’s been quantified. That should stay very firmly with farmers and agriculture in general.
“Each individual farmer should have the ability to, once proven, have those potential carbon credits attributed to them individually.
“Ultimately we’ve got to get this quantified first before we can start talking about what we’ll do with them,” O’Brien concluded.