Farming and food unprepared for global warming, says advisory council

The Department of Agriculture is not properly preparing farmers for climate change and its impacts on their land and livelihoods, the Climate Change Advisory Council has said. The independent Government advisory body has asked the department to “develop and deploy” within 12 months a “practical climate-risk toolkit tailored to individual land parcels”. It says farmers must be helped adjust practices amid recurring prolonged and intense winter rainfall, summer heat stress and drought, wildfires and other extreme weather-related events that are keeping them out of their fields, short of livestock fodder and struggling to grow crops. “We cannot keep treating every prolonged wet period or drought as an isolated crisis,” said council chairman Alex White. READ MORE“Climate change is challenging some of the established practices involved in agriculture and land management. “Practical support will be essential, whether that means making land and farms more resilient, adapting existing practices or pursuing viable opportunities for diversification, including forestry, carbon farming and renewable energy.” Lack of preparation is one of many criticisms made in the council’s annual review of agriculture and land use in the context of climate change. It finds the sector – the single biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the country – reduced its emissions by just 0.2 per cent last year. Over the past five years, it has managed only a 4.7 per cent cut – far short of the 25 per cent reduction it is obliged to achieve by 2030. The review says the department has also failed to meet forestry planting targets for the fourth year in succession. Less than one-third of the planting due last year was achieved and the rate fell again in the first six months of this year. Production of low-carbon biomethane gas from agricultural waste is also way off track, with revised estimates expecting just 40 per cent of the 2030 target to be achieved. Commitments to fatten cattle faster for slaughter so each animal emits less greenhouse gas over its lifetime have no implementation plan. Other commitments – to introduce lower emission fertilisers and feed additives that reduce livestock belching – are also behind schedule. A previous request by the council for national dietary advice to steer people towards more sustainable diets with less meat and more plants and cereals was not acted upon. The council also says the departments of Agriculture and Climate need to talk more to farmers and rural communities and recommends setting up a structured dialogue process. The report also raises concerns around the Republic’s heavy reliance on imported food. It says 83 per cent of fruit and vegetables come from overseas, with supply chains vulnerable to extreme weather effects on harvests and transport. Yet the number of commercial growers in the State has dropped below 70 compared to more than 600 in the 1990s. The council says the State’s food security is at risk and the department should review the support schemes in place to encourage more fruit and vegetable production. It also calls for the swift publication of a promised Government policy on solar energy. A growing number of solar parks are progressing, but they require much more land than wind turbines. The council says there should be greater consideration of agrivoltaics – the placing of solar arrays above or between crops or grazing land to enable simultaneous farming and energy production. On Tuesday, Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon said the drought conditions caused by the prolonged dry spell this summer show the need for the Irish horticulture industry to consider adopting irrigation systems more widely.He said all sectors in agriculture needed to build up resilience so farming could be future-proofed against extreme weather events, which he predicted would be less rare in the years ahead.Heydon was speaking following an informal meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Dublin Castle held as part of the State’s presidency of the Council of the European Union.