EPA - Ireland's Environment 2016 - An Assessment

205 / 234

201
Measuring progress in agricultural sustainability is
difficult. Dillon et al. (2016) developed a series of farm
level sustainability indicators using information from
the National Farm Survey data and looking at three
dimensions: environmental sustainability (relating to GHGs
and nitrogen use), economic sustainability and social
sustainability. While this approach and the creation of the
Food Wise 2025 Environmental Sustainability Committee
have promise in assisting to ensure the environmental
sustainability of agriculture, the regional and local variation
in the physical setting as highlighted by the ACP and EPA
characterisation work indicate the complexity in achieving
sustainable intensification. When considering this in the
context of the knowledge and practice transfer issues
highlighted by the AgImpact project and Origin Green,
it is clear that the interplay between the two strands of
research will require attention in the immediate future. In
addressing this issue, Dillon et al. (2016) noted that ‘There
is a growing recognition of the need for interconnected
policy in the area of sustainability’. It is clear that
addressing these interplays will be a key challenge for
farmers, public bodies, and agricultural and environmental
policy-makers in the coming years.
Innovation
There have been a number of positive innovations
to support the sustainable development of the
agricultural sector.
Recent years have seen a number of positive innovations
to support the sustainable development of the agricultural
sector. PastureBase Ireland16 is a citizen science enabled
system into which farmers provide data on grass growth
from their farms, which facilitates the quantification of
grass growth in a range of biophysical environments.
PastureBase then provides feedback that can be used by
farmers to support day-to-day management decisions to
improve production efficiency (getting more from less)
or to evaluate longer-term performance from the farm.
The Teagasc-Bord Bia Carbon Navigator tool referred to
previously represents a pro-active approach to addressing
resource efficiency. The newly developed Nutrient
Management Planning (NMP) Online system has the
potential to assist with the management of soil fertility
and may allow for the tracking of spatial and temporal
changes in it. Coupling NMP online with other productivity
efficiency tools may help farmers to improve productivity
while protecting water quality.
The Teagasc Technology Foresight 2035 report (Teagasc,
2016) identified the potential contribution of the
converging ICT technologies that can provide new, more
cost-effective, integrated and streamlined systems at
all levels in the agricultural value chain. New and larger
16
datasets are now and will increasingly be collected using
affordable sensor technologies that will be employed at
farm level. The risks inherent in addressing and managing
all the production and environmental resources can be
significantly reduced when data are used to inform the
decision making at all stakeholder levels. Substantial
datasets are being collated via EPA work on catchment
characterisation and via PastureBase, NMP online, ACP
and other initiatives. Clearly future data sharing and
management will be a key support to environmental
protection in the context of agriculture.
Conclusion and Future
Challenges
The quality of Ireland’s environment plays a vital role
in the quality of Ireland’s agricultural produce and its
marketing. It is essential to ensure the implementation of
the Food Wise strategy does not result in damage to the
environment and supports progressive improvement where
it is already impacted. Food Wise recognises this and its
vision of economic competitiveness and environmental
sustainability being equal pillars is a significant step
towards dealing with the tensions that can exist between
environmental goals and socio-economic ones. Addressing
these tensions will require a strong, reliable and
independent evidence base upon which all stakeholders
involved in environmental protection and agriculture
development and management can depend and upon
which actions can be developed and implemented. Better
information and more evidence are being delivered on
the interactions between agriculture, its productivity and
its consequences on the environment via research and
other channels. There is however a challenge in improving
the sharing of this information and more importantly
developing a common understanding of the interactions
between agricultural management choices and their
effects on the environment and the measures on how to
address them.
Chapter 12: Environment and Agriculture