The Climate Action Plan 2025 includes a range of measures to reduce emissions from agriculture by 25%. These include reductions in the use of chemical nitrogen, the substitution of inhibited urea for other forms of fertiliser, reductions in the protein content of animal feed and improvements in breeding technologies to allow earlier finishing of beef cattle and a focus on low methane traits.
In addition, diversification opportunities, including organic farming, forestry and tillage, and the National Biomethane strategy which will provide an alternative use for grass forage and slurry and contribute to reductions in emissions from agriculture and to the delivery of Ireland’s renewable energy targets.
My Department and its agencies continue to invest in research across of range of climate change mitigation headings, and there is significant potential for technologies such as methane reducing feed additives to contribute to abatement in the livestock sector.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s report of July 2024 “Ireland’s Provisional Greenhouse Gas Emissions 1990 - 2023” sets out that Agriculture emissions decreased by 4.6% in 2023. While this decrease represents notable progress, I am conscious of the need to maintain and accelerate this trajectory.
