RTÉ Brainstorm – What’s stopping Irish farmers implementing climate action changes?

January 14, 2022

Whitaker Institute member Dr Doris Laepple, of the Environment, Development and Sustainability Cluster, has written a new article for RTÉ Brainstorm. The piece looks at the challenges for farmers in reducing agricultural emissions.

What’s stopping Irish farmers implementing climate action changes?

“Ensuring farmers have good experiences with new environmentally-friendly practices will be important in convincing other farmers to follow suit.” Photo: Getty Images

Analysis: a number of behavioural barriers provide a challenge for farmers in terms of reducing agricultural emissions

Given the urgency to tackle the climate crisis, big changes are required to the way Ireland produces food. This is because the Irish agricultural sector is responsible for over one-third of Ireland’s total greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the recently published Climate Action Plan set a target to reduce agricultural emissions by between 22 and 30% by 2030.

A key idea to achieve the target is that farmers implement environmentally friendly practices on their farms. Many farmers have already made great progress in this regard, but further changes are needed for overall agricultural emissions to decline. Continue reading…