Watch: ‘Farmers want to do the right thing'
Richards was a panelist at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) Agriculture and Climate Change conference yesterday (June 5).
Karl Richards, Teagasc
He told Agriland that some farmers are 'early adopters' who want to have the latest technology on their farm.
Richards said: 'It's a bit slower in the general population of farmers. Farmers are saying what's in it for me? What are the benefits?
'There is a lot of inertia in the system but by and large, farmers want to do the right thing. They want to be as green and sustainable as they can.'
'I think more work is needed from a knowledge transfer perspective, and having the right policies and regulations in place and having the right incentives across the food industry, to encourage and pay farmers to adopt some of these things,' Richards added.
Teagasc
Richards explained that Teagasc established a climate action strategy in 2022.
He said that since then, 25 new scientists have been appointed, by Teagasc, to work on climate and biodiversity research.
Richards explained: 'The studies we found around nitrogen fertiliser, we can significantly reduce emissions by reducing the amount of fertiliser that we use.
'We do that by improving soil fertility, by applying lime, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur. We do it by incorporating clover, by using low emission spreading, and using different organic services to reduce amount of nitrogen we need to grow grass.'
'The other side is about changing the formulation of the fertiliser we apply. Protected urea is research that we led a number of years ago with colleagues with in Northern Ireland, that shows we can reduce emissions from fertiliser by changing from one bag, to protected urea, we can reduce emissions by over 70%.
'New research is highlighting, if we include another inhibiter with that, we can reduce the emissions by nearly 90%,' Richards added.
According to Richards, Teagasc is researching the breeding of 'low emitting animals',
He believes that it can use certain additives in feeds to reduce methane emissions.
Richards said: 'At the moment we're trying to tailor that for our grazing situation, which is a bit more difficult.
'We're also looking at the effects of different pasture qualities, different herbage types, there's a number of things happening.'
'Finally, on the manure side, we have developed some additives along with GlasPort Bio in Galway, which significantly reduces methane emissions from stored manure, which is an important source greenhouse gas as well,' he added.
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