The Republic of Ireland has allocated €22.3 million to advance research on sustainable agriculture, including exploring opportunities for farmland nature credits.
Funding will be delivered to 21 research projects in a wide range of areas, from biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and adaptation to food safety and bioeconomy.
“This investment will help equip the Irish agriculture, food, forest, and bioeconomy sectors with the science and technology they need to become even more sustainable and competitive into the future,” said Martin Heydon, minister at the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine with responsibility for research and development.
The newly announced investment builds on the first tranche of projects funded last December with €24.2 mln, and brings the total to over €46 mln, the largest allocation ever from a research call run by the department.
Low-emissions dairy production, carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, and sustainable packaging materials are among the topics covered by the programme.
One of the projects – coordinated by Yvonne Buckley, professor of zoology at Dublin’s Trinity College – will focus on developing farmland nature credits to accelerate the sustainable transition in Irish agriculture.
A separate initiative, overseen by Ken Byrne, professor of biological sciences at the University of Limerick, seeks to enhance peatland forest management for climate, biodiversity, and water quality.
Last September, the sustainable finance non-profit Landscape Finance Lab told Carbon Pulse that an emerging peatland standard is working to address biodiversity credits before the end of 2025 in Ireland.
However, the country’s latest National Biodiversity Action Plan, released in January, did not mention biodiversity credits.
“Practices across the agri-food, forest, and bioeconomy sectors are always evolving, and Ireland should be at the forefront of these developments,” Heydon said.
“A steady pipeline of new solutions is the cornerstone of increasing economic, environmental, and social sustainability, and the next step is for the output of these projects to reach end-users such as farmers, advisors, policymakers, and industry stakeholders.”
Concerns over the impact of agriculture on nature in the country have increased in recent months, with the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss – set up by the parliament and comprised of 99 members of the public – calling on the government to urgently address the farming-driven risks for biodiversity.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ireland has the highest agriculture emissions contribution towards national total emissions across all EU 27 member states.
The country is set to launch its carbon farming framework in the next few months, the first of its kind to be proposed for adoption in a European country.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
** Click here to sign up to our twice-weekly biodiversity newsletter **
