€2.7m to ramp up Farm Soil Carbon Observatory

The Observatory was established in 2020 to improve the national inventory, so it can accurately reflect the actual emissions and sequestration from grasslands.

Some €2.7m of funding has been committed to ramp up the National Agricultural Soil Carbon Observatory.

Data collected by the Observatory will underpin the development of a ‘carbon farming’ model that aims to reward actions that remove carbon and store it in the soil.

The National Agricultural Soil Carbon Observatory — or NASCO for short — was established in 2020 to improve the national inventory, so it can accurately reflect the actual emissions and sequestration from grasslands. This money will facilitate the purchase of additional greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring equipment, with the resulting data to be used to verify progress towards national targets.

Minister McConalogue said: “This investment of more than €2.7m funding to expand the National Agricultural Soil Carbon Observatory reaffirms my commitment to provide the research and data needed to underpin the development of a carbon farming model that targets and rewards actions that remove carbon and store it in our soils.

“Our strategic investment in this technology will benefit Irish agriculture and society at large through the better understanding of our GHG emissions and the highlighting of pathways through which we can achieve significant emission reductions.

“Carbon farming is an area that will become a crucial part of the future of farming in this country.

“This will be an opportunity for our farmers to derive a new income stream for their farm.

“To reward our farmers for the actions they take to remove and store carbon in our soils, forests, grasslands, croplands and hedgerows, a well-functioning carbon farming framework that provides confidence, verification and certification is essential.

“I have recently established a working group, chaired by officials from my department with expertise drawn from across government, to examine the key elements of an enabling carbon farming framework.

“Key areas which this group will focus on, amongst others, include identifying existing knowledge relevant to the establishment of baseline data, making recommendations for pathways to address knowledge gaps, assessing future auditing requirements, the development of voluntary carbon codes, examining the possibility to leverage private financing through public/private partnerships, and the identification of best practice governance structures.”

Teagasc has already taken early steps towards the intensive monitoring of carbon emissions and their removal across a range of Irish soils, to improve understanding of the practices that build carbon stores in soils.

Dr Karl Richards, head of the environment, soils and land-use research department at Teagasc, said this week’s announcement would allow further progress to be made.

“The expansion of the carbon observatory will provide the research community in Ireland with cutting edge research facilities to better refine agricultural emissions and identify new mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will place Ireland at the forefront of EU carbon sequestration research,” he said.

It follows the recent publication by the European Commission of its policy paper, ‘Sustainable Carbon Cycles’.

This communication highlights the importance of the development and deployment at scale of carbon removal solutions, both technical and land-based, as indispensable to reaching climate neutrality by 2050.

Welcoming the report, Senator Pippa Hackett, Minister of State for Land Use and Biodiversity, said she hopes to see incentives not only for on-farm tree planting but also a broad range of carbon farming practices.