Farmers need greater financial incentives to substitute turf with renewable energy crops
It would also generate significant employment in rural areas and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Professor Jimmy Burke, of Teagasc, made the predictions at the Agricultural Science Association annual conference in Sligo yesterday.
He told delegates that 1.3 million tonnes of peat are burned in electricity generating stations in the Midlands every year.
If half of this were substituted with biomass crops, such as willow, miscanthus or forest thinnings, it would create new uses for up to 70,000 ha (175,000 acres) of land.
This would lead to a reduction of one million tonnes a year in greenhouse gas emissions. However, he stressed that unless the environmental benefits were taken into account in the price paid to farmers, production of biomass crops was not an economic proposition.
Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan, who officially opened the conference, said producing energy crops was still a relatively new field in Ireland.
Market forces on their own will not be enough to drive the market. What are needed are fiscal incentives to kick-start the industry, she said.
“Specifically, incentives must be targeted at farm level to encourage farmers to grow more energy crops and to make the necessary adaptations to farming systems.
“Like any other business, farmers must receive an acceptable level of return on their investment, time and input if they are to be encouraged to grow energy crops,” she said.
IFA president Padraig Walshe said the core objective in relation to agriculture in the next National Development Plan must be to tackle structural deficits in farming and thereby help the sector to adjust to increasing competitive pressures.
