Good news for Kilkenny farms - EPA says reduced greenhouse gas from agriculture

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Provisional Greenhouse Gas Emissions report for 2023 has revealed a national reduction in emissions of 6.8% (-4.0 Mt CO2eq) year on year. Emissions from Agriculture decreased by 4.6% (-1.0 Mt CO2eq) in 2023.

This is primarily driven by reduced fertiliser nitrogen use and reduced liming.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, T.D, said the results are positive.

“They show that agriculture is on the right path, especially following on from reductions in 2022. It is very encouraging to see the work that farmers are putting in on the ground reflected in the results.

“It’s important that we maintain this positive trajectory and continue in our efforts to achieve the commitment of a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for agriculture by 2030.”

Agriculture has laid a solid foundation to deliver a downwards emission trajectory over the coming years.
Policies and strategies are bearing fruit with emissions from Agriculture trending downwards. These include measures such as genotyping of 740,000 calves, promoting the use of renewable energy on farms, reducing the use of fertilisers and pesticides, improving soil health and promoting biodiversity.
The use of chemical nitrogen in 2023 reduced by 18%.

The efforts of farmers were also praised by Minister Pippa Hackett. “We need to sustain this reduction, and we need to continue rolling out schemes that we know are successful and that we know will reduce the need for chemical nitrogen.

“The organic farming scheme, the protein aid scheme, and the multi species sward and red clover silage measures have all played a critical role here, so we should keep expanding them.

“The area of land farmed organically has trebled to 225,500ha (5% of land area) in 3 years, meaning that we are halfway to achieving our 2030 target of 10% of Irish agricultural land being farmed organically – I am excited to keep that good work going.”

This year has seen the finalisation of the National Agricultural Soil Carbon Observatory, supplying the scientific infrastructure to measure GHG fluxes from soils under agricultural management.
This project is placing Ireland at the forefront of EU carbon sequestration research.