Will biogas plants provide additional income for farmers? I’m sceptical

Hidden deep in the pages of the recently published Ireland’s Draft National Biomethane Strategy January is a riddle. In spite of it being described as a farmer-focused and agri-led strategy, there is scant mention of farming stakeholders.

From what we read, cattle and sheep farmers such as me are earmarked as the main suppliers of feedstock to a new countrywide network of anaerobic digesters.

There appears to be a public misperception that farm slurry will form the main feedstock for these digesters. In fact, a 50/50 mix of grass silage and cattle slurry is required to make up the digesters’ feedstock.

It’s the grass silage which produces 85pc of the biogas. The slurry which contains the all-important bacteria to make the process work is only responsible for producing around 15pc of the biogas.

There are, however, a number of issues which don’t appear to add up.

If cattle farmers, such as me, supplied all their grass in the form of grass-silage as feedstock to the digester operators, the operators would still need an equivalent amount of slurry, which we can no longer supply as we no longer have cattle to produce it.

But couldn’t the dairy sector supply all the slurry that is needed, you may ask? They could indeed, were it not for the fact that dairy farmers need it themselves to fertilise their own grazing land.

But couldn’t dairy farms simply use the digestate which is left after the anaerobic process to replace the slurry on their farms?

They could, but this would cause another problem. As chemical fertilisers are excluded there would be no digestate available to fertilise next season’s grass silage for use in the biodigesters.

Multi-species swards could be the answer but as well as being in its infancy, the process still involves considerable challenges and costs as well as being particularly onerous to manage and maintain .

Currently, biomethane costs considerably more to produce than the equivalent price of fossil fuels, so any additional cost in the production of grass-silage as feedstock is critical, particularly as no government support is, as yet, forthcoming.

So it appears hopes for a circular sustainable biogas production system are still very much ‘up in the air’. The harsh reality is, if these biogas proposals are implemented, damage to the ecology and fertility of our natural soils is a very real concern.

The riddle as to whether farmers will receive proper payment for their grass silage feedstock also remains to be answered.

It is comforting to see agencies such as the Irish Bioenergy

Association (IrBEA) say that there is no point in putting in place supports, measures and incentives without being cognisant of the challenges some stakeholders along the supply chain could face.

Anaerobic digesters have a valuable contribution to make in areas such as the treatment of animal and food waste and also to address difficulties encountered on some large industrialised-type farms.

In the meantime, the riddle of the wholly unfounded claims that “biogas plants will provide additional income streams for farm families” make me extremely sceptical.

Back to my cattle and the reality of everyday farming in this very wet spring.

In spite of our seemingly never-ending wet weather, I eventually decided to let out about half of my cattle on March 21.

I was hoping that at such a light stocking rate, not too much damage would be caused. However, it was not to be and with the return of the monsoon-type rain, they were back in the shed just two days later.

For my grass-based system to work, it is imperative that I get my cattle back out on grass as soon as possible. It is very frustrating, the grass is there but I can’t get my cattle out to graze it.

I have just finished buying the last of my store cattle and they certainly haven’t gotten any cheaper.

For the first time in my life I paid (including commission) €1,000 for some plain Friesians. They were fine big cattle with lots of scope but weighed very little.

Being Friesian cattle, they will probably struggle to grade Os come next autumn. But, as always in the cattle business, we live in hope!

‘The riddle as to whether farmers will receive proper payment for their grass silage feedstock also remains to be answered’

John Heney farms in Kilfeackle, Co Tipperary