Things that farmers can do to reduce the impact of global temperature

ALMOST 30% of the global warming temperature increase is associated with farming activities in Ireland.

Changes made by farmers will allow them to become providers of goods and services to control the environment, and these provisions will take many forms. THINGS WE ARE DOING AND MUST CONTINUE TO DO PRESENTLY: The obvious things are well recognised, such as energy use reduction and recycling. The obvious land use alternatives are wind, solar, geothermal, anaerobic digestion, and hydroelectric.

We need do nutrient budgeting of the main nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, to prevent leaching losses to groundwater and nitrogen emission to atmosphere.

We probably need to practice more variable rate fertilisation in grassland.

About 30% of all nitrogen fertiliser applied to soil is lost to the air or to groundwater, more if pH is not right. Nitrogen mineralisation from the permanent nitrogen store in soil is an option, and we need to look more the nitrogen fixing clovers, and nitrogen fixing crops, and slow release nitrogen products to either modify or replace CAN and urea.

Also we need to look at measuring root volume of soil, soil compaction, soil flora and fauna, soil aeration, soil porosity, and soil permeability. OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE 1. Creating more constructed wetlands for use as biomass sinks, where plants die and become humified like peat bogs. 2. Constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment. 3. Enhanced photosynthesis using high concentrations of carbon dioxide in plant growth. 4. Control of nitrogen and sulphur emissions by using additives in farm slurry by acidity regulation, enzyme addition, and oxidation enhancement. 5. Use of biomass to biochar to lock carbon in soil. 6. Solar panels on farm buildings 7. Direct burning of waste poultry manure 8. Double forestry plantation, and diversify biomass types 9. Reduce cattle numbers by about 500,000 and use land for energy production. 10. Growing biomass for biochar to lock carbon Dr Conor Murphy PHD Southern Scientific Services 4 Park Business Centre,Farranfore, Co Kerry; Tel: 066 97 63588; Email:info@ southernscientificireland. com; Website:www.southernscienficireland.com