From the end of the second World War and particularly after our entry into the European Union in 1973, government policy espoused an expansion of the agricultural sector here.
In a report published in 2021 on a national agri-food strategy out to 2030, the emphasis shifted to sustainability.
The report proclaimed a carbon–neutral sector by 2050, and a strategy for its development for the period to 2030.
It is somewhat ironic that while the report proposed expansion in tillage, horticulture, organic production and forestry, it also emphasised that the core of Ireland’s agri-food output would continue to be grass-based livestock production – the very component that will bear the brunt of the required downward adjustment in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
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The context for the future has changed utterly, with environment and climate change issues having a big bearing on the farming sector. It is anticipated that the reduction in emissions will derive from the adoption of a range of mitigation measures including feed additives, change in fertiliser use, higher genetic merit, and a reduction in animal numbers.
Reducing output goes fundamentally against the DNA of the agricultural establishment, and how this can be effected is obviously the critical question.
In response to the commitment to an annual reduction of 7 per cent in GHG emissions to 2030, the focus is firmly on the national cattle herd – the primary source of emissions from agriculture.
Whether the reduction in numbers comes from the dairy or beef herds is an important matter; whereas the beef sector is experiencing a gradual and persistent decline and its operators are crucially dependent on direct payments, the dairy herd has expanded by more than one-third since the ending of the dairy quota in 2015 and has led the intensification of agriculture here.
The prime issue at the moment concerns the prospects of reaching the gross emissions reduction target of 25 per cent by 2030 as an intermediate step in attaining carbon-neutral zero status by 2050.
Emissions fell by 4.6 per cent in 2023 relative to 2022 but fell by only 2.9 per cent relative to 2018, well short of the mitigation potential of measures identified in the Climate Action Plan as stated by the Climate Change Advisory Council.
The council has stated that the sector will have to implement all the proposed measures in the latest Climate Action Plan to reach its 2030 target.
And this is the real dilemma. How do you achieve an objective with a group sceptical of climate change, in this case the farming community, who are cynically supported by many populist and misinformed politicians?
This is the real challenge facing the Government and sooner or later it will have to come off the fence, led by an imaginative and energetic minister, to outline its policy and actions to accelerate the reduction in GHG emissions from agriculture as we approach 2030.
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In this context, the Just Transition Commission should vigorously promote dialogue with rural communities to explain and justify the measures being introduced to respond to climate change. The adjustment to a zero-neutral carbon future will be even more challenging from 2030 to 2050 as the relentless downward pressure on emissions continues.
Penalties may need to be imposed to achieve a reduction in livestock numbers.
In the meantime, the impact on the beef enterprise is likely to be greater. It is already on a downward trajectory; it’s the predominant enterprise of part-time farmers, and is the least-profitable farmland enterprise.
That trend could accelerate, giving a sizeable further decline in numbers.
The replacement of beef farming with forestry is a win-win action. It increases farm income, reduces GHG emissions, and significantly increases carbon sequestration. The impact on the dairy sector should be less severe given that it is more commercial, efficient and resilient but it is vulnerable to criticisms that its intensification may have negative environmental effects, particularly on water quality, the correction of which could have negative effects on production.
So the beef herd may bear the brunt of the adjustment to a more environmentally friendly agriculture, and dairying may at best stabilise, with a just transition for both, funded from successive CAP strategic plans.
Further expansion in agricultural output will be curtailed as it is unlikely that any other activity has the capacity to compensate for a restriction on the dairy and beef enterprises. This will have a significant negative impact on the evolution of farm incomes, especially from dairying, unless effective climate mitigation strategies are developed and adopted.
This is likely to stifle the contribution of agriculture to the national economy, and would also lessen its appeal as an occupation.
We are likely to see a gradual decline in the land area used for agriculture, a corresponding increase in forestry in its various forms, in grass silage for anaerobic digestion, and in solar panels and wind turbines.
The great bulk of the agricultural area will remain in less-intensive farming given the sheer scale of the area now in grassland. Conventional farming, as we have known it, will have reduced somewhat in scale and more of its income will derive from policies supporting protection of the environment and enhancing biodiversity.
In all previews of national farm plans in the past it would have been taken for granted that the two main cattle enterprises (beef and dairy) would be in priority place for further development. Now it’s different.
In my entire career in agricultural economic research, both in the public and private domain, I have never found it so difficult to anticipate the future for the sector.
It is putting farmers in an unenviable position, especially full-time commercial farmers, because their options have become more circumscribed and the journey to net zero is still fraught with uncertainty.
With the economy booming, the lure of the non-farm economy may become a more attractive option for the farm labour force.
Brendan Kearney is an economic consultant
