Industry to share farm’s GHG pressure

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has confirmed that some sectors of the economy will have to cut carbon emissions more than 20%, in order to make up for the agri-food sector’s incapacity to achieve this binding 2020 target agreed with the EU.

“It is true that other sectors will have to do more than 20%, because I believe agriculture does not have the capacity to achieve those numbers,” Mr Coveney told the Dáil last week.

He said Ireland highlighted the importance of a coherent EU approach to greatly increased global demand for food, and an important step towards this was taken at the October 2014 European Council.