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Gerard Deane and Paul Gosling host a new series of podcasts - explainers of some of the challenging issues that our society faces of promoting a wider, more inclusive and engaged conversation about how we make progress and further solidify peace and create a genuinely shared and integrated society in Northern Ireland. Holywell Trust is curating a discussion that is mutually respectful, forward focused and positive. The podcast considers the real challenges that Northern Ireland's society faces in the coming years and begins to arrive at practical and honest approaches to address these.
Farming In Transition
Introduction
Gerard Deane: Hello, and welcome to this latest Holywell Trust Conversations Podcast. As usual, joined by Paul Gosling. Paul, how's the form?
Paul Gosling: It's good, apart from being cold, Gerard.
Gerard Deane: Well, that's the season, isn't it?
Gerard Deane: So, Paul, what are we talking about today?
Paul Gosling: The agriculture sector? Farming. And the thing is that agriculture remains one of our largest trade sectors in Ireland, including here in the northwest. And it's an activity that's going through far reaching change because of both Brexit and climate change.
Gerard Deane: Okay, so when you say big, just how big is it for us.
Paul Gosling: Well, there's lots of different numbers that are quoted. But to use the one that's used by the department, for the economy, the Northern Ireland government figures agriculture is worth around 1.7 billion pounds to the Northern Ireland economy, which is 4% of total economic activity. Now, that compares to 1% of the UK economy. So farming is four times more important to us than it is to Britain.
Gerard Deane: Okay, so you're saying that working through agriculture is going through far reaching change. What are the challenges that it's facing now?
Paul Gosling: Well, the sector's very worried. Post Brexit trade deals have been agreed by the British government with major agricultural economies Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. And there's further possible deals with Brazil and Canada. And that's increasing the concern. The size of these countries' farms and their farming businesses provide much greater economies of scale, potentially undercutting UK production. Now, the British government has pledged that new trade deals will not involve reductions in environmental protection, food standards or animal welfare. But some campaigners have expressed skepticism about this, not least in the longer term, because no government can bind future governments.
Gerard Deane: Okay, so the farmers don't like the new trade deals then?
Paul Gosling: Well, both the Ulster Farmers Union and Britain's National Farmers Union have criticised them, saying they damage UK farming interests.
Gerard Deane: Right, but surely Northern Ireland farmers produce a lot of the food that is consumed here and in Great Britain.
Paul Gosling: Around half of UK food consumption is domestically produced. But a lot of the supermarket meat is sourced on the international market. In the dairy sector, the concern is about the price that's paid. Recently, the Ulster Farmers Union said that of the then typical one pound 65 price for a two liter bottle of milk, the farmer would receive 57 pence, whereas it cost 70 pence to produce. So they're making a loss of 13 pence for every two liters that's actually sold. By comparison, the retailers and the processors were taking around one pound and eight pence to cover their costs and margins. Now, I should add that some of the processes are dairy co-ops that are owned by the farmers, though not necessarily controlled by the farmers.
Gerard Deane: Okay, so we all know that farmers are subsidized and receive loads of different subsidies from government. Can you explain what the subsidy arrangements are now?
Paul Gosling: I'll try. farmers receive farming support payments. Now, until Brexit, farmers here receive single farm payments under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, farmers in Northern Ireland can now claim under the Basic Payment Scheme, that's a total of 294,000,000 pounds that's available for payments to farmers who are farming at least 3 Hectares of land. Now, if you're like me and you don't understand what a hectare is, that's about 30,000 square meters. The UK government is phasing out direct payments for farmers in England over a seven year period, providing support instead through public payments for public good, which is focused on environmental protection and climate change mitigation measures.
Gerard Deane: Okay, so how is the subsidy system changing here in Northern Ireland, then?
Paul Gosling: Well, Northern Ireland is making similar changes, but they're not identical ones. The Basic Payment System will be replaced in 2025 by the Farm Sustainability Payment with new targets and conditions. A new Farm Support and Development program will be phased in. With payments reduced, farmers will increasingly be paid for their environmental supports, along with resilience, efficiency improvement and supply chain development.
Gerard Deane: Okay, so locally, in particular, farmers have been criticized for the runoff of nitrates and the waterways contributing to algae blooms, at Lough Neagh as well.
Paul Gosling: Yeah. And that illustrates the point that society and government are increasing the pressure on farmers to change systems of production in terms of both reducing carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and also other impacts on the environment, which, along with Brexit, underlines the point that farming is on the cusp of very significant changes.
Gerard Deane: Okay, so as always, you've talked to a couple of people for this episode. Who have you talked to?
Paul Gosling: Well, let's first of all, I discussed the trading pressures on the farming sector with William Taylor of Farmers for Action, whose family runs a farm on the edge of Coleraine and William runs a farm machinery business. Now, Farmers for Action has been lobbying in recent years for legal protection for farm prices, which it argues are held down through stronger market position held by supermarkets and food processors, and that the farmers really don't have enough power in that relationship. Now, you'll hear during this conversation that William talks about the proposed Farm Welfare bill. But first, I asked William to explain a bit about the family farm and the financial circumstances facing farmers at present. What you also hear him say is that one of the main impacts of Brexit has been its contribution to the inflationary cost farmers are dealing with.
William Taylor
William Taylor: First of all, we have the rampant inflation that has taken off since, basically, Brexit has kicked in with the Irish Sea border. And, obviously not all caused by Brexit, but obviously the Ukrainian war and everything else that has erupted. So, in other words, everything that's imported from the UK into Northern Ireland now has increased transport costs and increased costs doing the paperwork to allow this to happen. And also the complications with stock, being sent across to Pedigree stock, I'm thinking of here being sent across to Scotland, England or Wales. And then it can't return for six months, which is an impossible situation if the stock has been sent over to a sale and not sold, and all sorts of complications. And then we have the veterinary medicines issue. And the bottom line is that things, for example, like farm machinery and especially spare parts, these costs of particularly farm machinery and spare parts keep on rising regardless. The farmer is lumbered with all this and no way around it. So yes, Brexit on that front has cost a lot of money, and left things just that much more expensive on the farm. For everything that you touch and need. Farmers buy from 123 different suppliers on average, across the board. So obviously each one of those raising a small amount or a larger amount has a big impact on what the farm does. Secondly, we come to the single farm payment money, or what was called single farm payment money, before Brexit and by 2020, basically, at the changeover point where the UK government now pays the farmer support money. Brexit, sorry, at that point of Brexit, the Common Agricultural Policy in Brussels had not updated single farm payment money for inflation in 20 years. Now, if you then bring that forward to what the UK government is now supplying, on a promise up to election year next year in 2025, and then it all changes again. They have basically stuck, give or take, with the same amount of money and you add rampant inflation from 2020 to 2023. And basically the support money now going to farmers in Northern Ireland, not to mention across the rest of the UK, is only worth about half in real terms, what it was worth 23 years ago. So being a farmer at the minute, a family farmer and trying to survive has just gone from bad to worse. So that brings us right forward to the fact that we can see no other way forward, other than for our Northern Ireland Farm Welfare bill to go through Stormont as quickly as possible, if Stormont re-sits which we hope will be very shortly.
Paul Gosling: What's happened to North South trade as far as your businesses and your members' businesses are concerned? Has there been any significant change in terms of North South trade?
William Taylor: Well look, we can see this at the sharp end all the time with the farm machinery business bringing in spare parts and also sending out spare parts etc, you know, when we send goods to GB, that route is not so bad. It's coming from GB to Northern Ireland is where the expense comes in with the paperwork, etc. North South trade is a lot easier on the machinery front, simply because we're still part of the Customs Union. However, the livestock thing, even North South is a lot easier, and is much the same to a point as it was prior to Brexit. However, as I said before, the livestock thing from Northern Ireland to GB is an awkward one, especially pedigree stock.
Paul Gosling: And what's the comparison and values?
Paul Gosling: I mean, how important is the GB trade compared with the Republic of Ireland trade? And has that changed as a result of Brexit?
William Taylor: I would say the GB trade for pedigree, sales of cattle and sheep and, any other, sides to that, even including, I suppose, pedigree chickens and other things. But, the bottom line is that, probably the GB trade is 75% of the pedigree trade in Northern Ireland. And, the south of Ireland is probably about 25%.
Paul Gosling: And, has that changed since Brexit?
William Taylor: I would say what has happened is that a lot of pedigree breeders have to really plan ahead for what they're going to do if they send pedigree stock across to GB. And, they have to be prepared virtually to sell and, not able to, shall we say, command a higher price. The buyers on the other side know that on the day they have to sell, because they can't afford to pay the bed and breakfast for the stock for six months before they can re import them back to Northern Ireland. So, yes, it has had a negative effect on pedigree animals.
Paul Gosling: And what about the dairy trade, William?
William Taylor: Well, look, there seems to be no complaints on that front. The Dairies, the co-ops and others that are purchasing milk seem to be able to deal with whatever comes their way. But remember, some of that is exported outside of GB in Northern Ireland onto the world market. However, yes, as far as the processors are concerned, they're able to sell all the milk that's coming to them, for example, as are the meat processors.
Paul Gosling: And it seems as if the fears that existed before Brexit that the cross border dairy trade would be interrupted, be damaged by Brexit, that does not seem to have been the case because of the Northern Ireland Protocol and subsequently the Windsor Framework. Am I right in understanding that?
William Taylor: Yes, you are correct. To date, there have been no issues with milk from farms not being able to be collected or otherwise. And a lot of that milk does move south. And, albeit some of the processors may have had contingency plans in place, just, in case anything did go wrong. But in our opinion, in Farmers For Action, it was never going to go wrong. Because, the situation with exports out of Southern Ireland for dairy products is a big part of their economy. and they were always going to see that there was a way found to allow milk to travel north, south, and vice versa, if needed, on occasion.
Paul Gosling: And just to finish this conversation, William, as an overview, how healthy financially are farms in Northern Ireland at this moment in time?
William Taylor: We would have to say that it's common knowledge that the dairy sector has the most borrowings and it is very concerning at the minute with a lot of dairy farmers finding themselves in a position now of finding it tough enough to be able to keep up with the repayments on. And, in general, we're not in a good place across agriculture in Northern Ireland. We're just not in a good place. It's very evident that people are being very careful with money currently. An example is the department has just put out a request for people to reply as to how future monies should go into agriculture to support grant funding, et cetera. And internally in Farmers for Action our answer to them is quite simply, if the department is going to supply a 40% grant, do they not realize that probably 75% of the farmers in Northern Ireland are in no position to put the other 60% to the 40%? To go forward and innovate and upgrade their farm or machines or whatever the case may be? So that takes us forward to climate change, which, again, farmers are going to need a lot of money to address that situation. So everything that you have asked Paul on the podcast, basically goes round in a circle and back to the fact that if we cannot pull off the success, of getting the Northern Ireland Farm Welfare Bill through Stormont as soon as it re-sits Northern Ireland agriculture is just not going to be in a good place because the processors, the retailers are ruthless. And, as everyone knows, they have scaled up the cost of food in their outlets and come back a little bit in agreement with the government to try and bring inflation down. But milk is just the classic example. Most people were used to paying, say, one pound and five p, one pound ten, maybe a little over that one pound 25 for two liters of milk. And, today I doubt if you'll buy that milk anywhere below, one pound 65 upwards to two pounds. So, I mean, it's it's always, what would you call it? A "loss leader" for the supermarkets. But in spite of that, they've managed to get that price up. And here we are with the farmers getting the same price as they were getting in 2020. So this ain't going to last until something drastic is done. And for us, that's the Northern Ireland Farm Welfare Bill, supported by other farm organizations also in Northern Ireland, as you know.
Paul Gosling: Just, one final point, William. I guess that a number of agricultural economists would argue there's actually too many farms that are too small in Northern Ireland. What's your response to that?
William Taylor: That, for us, carries absolutely no weight whatsoever. because in actual fact, the smaller, in relative terms to Northern Ireland, as we'll call it, the smaller family farms who have not, shall we say, taken the bait off the milk processors, telling them to get bigger, keep more cows, this is better. And the same on the beef front and the same on perhaps, shall we say, chickens and pigs and other things. But we'll refer to the dairy for an example. And, those farmers have managed to keep their borrowings down. And it is easier for them, maybe, to hang in there just for now, to see which way the wind blows over the next year or so the bigger farms who have done what shall we say? The processors have asked what the dairy co-ops have been pushing. Get bigger, keep more, and this will all be better in the long run. Well, that's not been the case. And for us and Farmers for Action, we take the side of every farmer, no matter how small or how big, they're all needed. And our industry is ready for a revolution and it needs to happen anytime soon.
Gerard Deane: Okay, so thanks to William for that contribution. And who else did you speak to, Paul?
John Gilliland
Paul Gosling: Now, our second guest today is John Gilliland, who has farmland in Derry and is a former president of the Ulster Farmers Union. He's a well known voice and is passionate about the role farmers need to play in protecting our environment, in particular through their reductions in carbon emissions. What I found especially significant talking with John was how he thinks of farmers as land managers. Anyway, let's listen now to John.
John Gilliland: My job situation changed at the end of February. So, I used to work for a lifetime nutrition company called Devonish and I ran their research farm in Dowth County Mead, which has just been bought by the Irish government to be the 7th National Park in the Republic of Ireland. So, I think we must have done something right, that the government decided. We definitely bought it in 2013 when it was a derelict landscape and we did a lot of work down there uncovering the heritage, but also did some extraordinary work in looking at future facing farming, climate smart farming. but we overstretched ourselves, so I was made redundant and the farm had to be sold and the Irish government stepped in and have now bought it and it's to be 7th National Park in the Republic of Ireland. So I suppose that's a very well engineered soft landing for the company.
Paul Gosling: And what are you doing now, John?
John Gilliland: So I am self-employed now. I mean, my speciality, Paul, I've already carved out a niche, is I really am, the expert across the British Isles and into Europe on climate smart farming, particularly, how do we deliver livestock production to net zero? And, so I do three days a week, based out of Coventry, for an organization called the Agriculture Horticultural Development Board, which is a statutory levee board. Collects levies of milk or beef or lamb or cereals sold. And it's used then for research, it's used for market information. and it's a non departmental public body, so it does have to answer to politicians, but it's at arm's length to politicians. And I do one day a week for Quality Meat Scotland, where I'm helping them in the same agenda. It's basically being a thought leader about how we navigate where we are now to where we need to get to. I've had two big successes, Paul, that's given me a foundation to do this. I don't know if you're aware, for seven years I chaired a think tank for Dera in Northern Ireland, where I chaired the writing of the Sustainable Land Management Strategy for Northern Ireland, where we said that actually, if you want people to change their behavior, you can only do it if you measure, and then manage, then measure, then manage. So our recommendation is that you should measure every field, every tree, every hedge in the country, and then repeat it every five years and do it with granularity. That there's a transparency and integrity that actually shows who is changing the behavior, who is stepping up to the plate and who isn't. So that actually, that's the quickest way of getting behavioral change. And, back in 2017 when we published our strategy, the Permanent Secretary said, "John, you are absolutely bonkers!" I said, "I may be bonkers, but I'm absolutely serious and I'm not giving up, I think, 45 million pounds to do this." So he gave, after six months haggling, we got one and a half million to do three river catchment pilots, the Upper River Bann the River Colbert, River Strule through the Agri Food and Bioscience Institute AFBE. We managed to get 80% of the farmers engaged. And two years later, we put a team of social scientists in from Leeds University and they recorded an 85% behavioral change. We took all that back just as the government was last forming, and said, we've proved that farmers will change their behavior if you empower them with really good information. Now, can we have 45 million to do the whole of Northern Ireland? And actually (Edwin) Poots agreed, and he found 45 million. So Northern Ireland is the first place in the world to really take this forensic approach, behavioral change of farmers. So he announced in May 22 that he was going to do this, and it would take four years to do it. Four zones, county Down a bit of County Armagh zone one, rest of Armagh, Fermanagh, zone two. Our county will be zone three, and Antrim will be zone four. And, to date, two zones have been recruited and we're having an uptake of 93%. It's unprecedented , Paul. and so that's one foundation. So, a lot of my work now is traveling internationally. People want to know, "How the hell did you do this? Not just how did you create the vision? How do you create the politics to get this done? But you don't have any government, so how did you do this?" And the second thing then, just at the start of lockdown, I secured 120,000 to bring six other farmers and myself together. Take this concept one step further. So, Brookhall led, we're, the first farms anywhere in the world to actually measure with granularity, not only our impact on water, in our trees, but in our soils. So we're measuring carbon down to a meter. we're measuring at four different depths. And we've created what we call whole farm carbon balance sheets. And, we've looked at our total emissions, we looked at our total carbon assets and what they're sequestering. And lo and behold, we found that two of the seven farms are already beyond net zero today. Brookhall being one of them. so this is causing extraordinary interest, excitement, and criticism all in the one breath. Just to give you an example, this week, I left home at lunchtime on Sunday, got the ferry over. I presented to the stakeholders of Quality Meat Scotland, in Edinburgh on Monday, I presented to the, national farmers union net zero committee in Coventry on Tuesday, I presented in Hexham on Wednesday to the Northern Farming Conference for sort of all that sort of northeast corner of England. And yesterday I presented to the NFU in Cumbria. Today I'm in Leeds.
Paul Gosling: A busy man spreading the message that farming can be environmentally sustainable.
Paul Gosling: So what are the core elements to sustainable farming for the future?
John Gilliland: Well, for me, Paul the key element is we need to stop talking at farmers and start talking with farmers. This is about behavioral change. We probably have 70% of the knowledge that we need to take the industry through this transition. We probably know already today, we don't know at all. But what we don't and haven't been able to do is, one, get the behavioral change, and, two, do it in a manner that is forensic and has integrity. So, really, the trick I have done is I focused on the measuring and the management. How do we do that with integrity in a way that actually picks up behavioral change. So, if a dairy farmer pulls out his electric fences and put hedges back in, have we got a granularity of digital investigation that can pick it up remotely? So, everyone says satellites, but satellites will only give you one scan per 10 m². My aerial LiDAR survey gives me 40 scans per square meter. So someone plants a small tree, and I will pick it up. Okay. Likewise, if I go from Ireland's traditional monocultural oren rye grass with heaps and heaps of synthetic fertilizer and I start to put legumes back in, something my grandfather would have done, and using legumes to take nitrogen out of the sky and put it onto the soil. Legumes have deeper roots. They lay carbon down deeper. So I need measurement tools to actually see this journey happening. So then I can report back with integrity to say, we did this behavior, "We got this response, and here is the change in my footprint." Now that works to everybody's benefit. One is it's a great feedback loop to the farmer themselves. They can physically see the consequence of their behavioral change. Second of all, it gives it out of granularity that you can now go to the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory and say, please, can I now have this counted in the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory? I can go to the likes of Foyle Meats and people, to processors and say, "Please, can I have my change counted in your scope?" Three emission declarations, which all big businesses now have to declare. But none of those processes at that moment have the ability to pick up actual behavioral change. So farmers get a really bad media and press, but we are modeling data. We're not measuring data. There is no feedback loop to farmers. And the data that goes through to society is all modeled. So there's no accuracy to it. So at least this brings true accuracy with a transparency that's unprecedented. So you can answer criticisms, concerned citizens, but you also give this fantastic feedback loop to get farmers to change their behavior.
Paul Gosling: And what your language is talking here, John, is farmers as land managers. And that is quite a different context to what politicians are talking about when they're talking about reducing beef herds and reducing the amount. Why is that? Why are you speaking a different language to politicians? And are politicians wrong to talk about reducing the size of herds?
John Gilliland: So I'll make it very clear. First of all, it is the Republic of Ireland talking about reducing the size of herds. It is not Northern Ireland talking about it, which is quite interesting, okay, because we both have the same problem, but we're approaching it in two different ways. The Republic of Ireland are reading the law the way the law is written today, and sometimes the law's an ass. Okay? So if we take the Greenhouse Gas National Inventory that was set up in the United Nations and IPCC, it's a spreadsheet hall, and it's a spreadsheet with a collection of vertical silos that don't talk to each other. Now, it's worked for the fossil fuel industry. It worked for the transport industry. It worked for most people until they hit agriculture. Agriculture is a horizontal industry that cuts across at least four of those vertical silos, and they're not allowed to talk to each other. And that's wrong. And I presented at the United Nations in August, and I called it out. I presented at the United Nations a year ago in September, and I called it out. I said, "You need to give farm businesses an extra tool where they can insert within their business." And it's about the definition of net zero. Net zero is not about zero emissions. Net zero is about getting emissions down a bit. It's about increasing carbon stocks a bit. It's about displacing fossil fuel, energy with renewables. And it's about putting things like anaerobic digestion to make sure that any of the waste does not create methane. But you put into something constructive when you pool those and you get those to zero, bingo, you're at net zero. And, the problem in Dublin is that Dublin has ring fenced, just agriculture. They haven't looked at carbon stocks, they haven't looked at renewables, they haven't looked at waste management, they haven't looked at sustainable transport. And all of those can sit within one legal farming business. So it is a different interpretation. And at the moment, I would like to think I am getting traction. Last Tuesday week ago, the European Parliament's Environment Committee voted through the Land Sector's Carbon Removal Framework of DG Clemens. But they went further, said, "must be attached to farmers' emissions," which I've been advocating for a long time, and "it must be done at individual farm level and not at the nation's level." The debate in the Republic of Ireland is really all about the national Inventory and not about behavioral change. And they've really backed themselves into a corner. Last week's editorial in the Irish Farmers Journal, really calls it out. It talks about New Zealand, talks about Australia, talks about the European Parliament. And my little project, Art Zero, gets a mention too, because I actually as good as wrote the article for the editor. So it's a different philosophy, Paul. I'm a practitioner, I'm a pragmatist, I'm also a grandfather. And there's a responsibility in you and I of our generation to try and actually redirect this supertanker and supertankers take a long time to turn and, my ability and it really comes right back from the time I was president of the Ulster Farmers Union and I had foot and mouth. I still have a lot of good political capital within the farming community. Even though I've been to hell and back and through RHI and things like that, people still believe that I'm a person of integrity. I am inquisitive. I look at things, maybe I stick my nose into things I shouldn't really concern me, but I do, and I try to find a solution.
Paul Gosling: What should farmers, in Northern Ireland then, be doing now? Differently?
John Gilliland: The key thing, if we take dairy production, which is the one that has the biggest emission okay, two simplest things I said to dairy. What three things? First of all, "how do we help you know your own numbers? Okay, so the first thing I want to do is empower you with really good information about. Your own business, not about your neighbors, about your own business. So where are your emissions? Where are your carbon stocks? Where does dirty water run off your farm and dump into the river? Where's your habitats? Where are your habitats not? Okay, so how do I help you know your numbers?" That's the first thing. So it's about empowering them. And when you empower them, lo and behold, they make better quality decisions, Paul, okay, so that's the first bit. The second bit is then, if I look at two big early wins they can do, the first one is that the biggest greenhouse gas emission is not methane, it's nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is a long lived gas, lives in the atmosphere for over 100 years, and it has a global warming potential of about 290 times the CO2. Methane is a short-lived gas. It only lives in the atmosphere for twelve years and at the moment, depending how you work it out, has a global warming potential of 26 times. And the media and society have got this all wrong. They're all beating living daylights out of methane. The one they need to beat the living daylights is nitrous oxide. Now, nitrous oxide is the easier of the two greenhouse gasses on a farm to sort out. It comes from using artificial fertilizer on wet soils. Okay, so how do we stop that? Well, we stop that by, one, knowing the fertility of our soil. So getting our soil PH, so our nitrogen use efficiency in the soil is far better. The second thing we do is we look to do what our forefathers did, which is put legumes back in again. Legumes fixate nitrogen, they take it out of the sky, they release it through their roots, and they fertilize the other plants around them. So can we go back to some of the things our forefathers did? But now with modern science, we can better understand how to leverage that. Okay, so when you can do that, the trials I did at the research farm in Dowth in County Meath over four years, we reduced our nitrogen fertilizer by 80%. We increased our productivity at the same time. So that's one example. The second one is very simple. For all those hedges that were ripped out and fences were put in, can we take the electric fences back out and put hedges back in again and reconnect habitats so that there's a win-win on both sides? Now, those are two very invisible things that you could do for a starter for ten before you start looking at expensive, sexy technologies around, methane inhibitors, which is the sexy thing that the Irish government are talking about. But it's a costly thing. There's a thing called a Mac curve, a Marginal Abatement Cost Curve, which shows all the different mitigation options a farmer can do and the economics around it. And surprise, surprise, over half of them actually have a negative cost. In other words, a profit. So when I sit down with farmers, what I do is I show them this Mac curve, I show them the win win activities. And I said, "just you focus on those for the moment." At some stage, we will have to go to the expensive options, but at some stage, someone will have to bring our sector into emissions trading, and we'll have to pay for the price of carbon. They're not at the moment, but they will have to go there at some stage. So let's focus on the win. Let's build up the evidence. My Arc zero project is a pilot. We've just got further funding from the Co op foundation in the UK. we're in a big bid with Vagram University, in the Netherlands, to the European Commission to set up a living lab network across six European countries and Northern Ireland. All being well, we will succeed on that. And, really what we're trying to do when those living labs are pilots is investigate what we call the right hand side of the Mac curve, which are the win losers, the expensive options, to actually find out how expensive they truly are on a commercial farm? And what is it we would need to do to tackle to bring those to be more reachable for a business that still has to make a profit at the end of the day?
Paul Gosling: Now, you mentioned there, emissions trading, and that touches on the international trade element of agriculture. How is it possible for farmers to move towards emissions trading systems without becoming internationally competitive? And how does that feed into the position of the Northern Ireland agriculture industry in terms of Brexit?
John Gilliland: So, I mean, the one key thing immediately in Brexit is whether the UK actually goes for a carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAP, which is what the European Commission are currently looking at. The UK has just had a consultation on it. But I will argue, Paul, that actually, both the UK and Europe are asleep at the wheel. Australia has beaten them. What is the country that has just done a free trade deal in agricultural products with Australia? The United Kingdom. Australia set up a clean air regulator nine years ago to bring in the land based sector. But they set the bar really high. And, for nine years, no farms got through it. This year, seven farms got through it. And those guys have done it not by modeling, but by measuring. They measured, they baselined their farms nine years ago, they repeated the baseline of their farm. Two years ago. They got a huge increase of carbon in their soils, under grazing animals, because they changed their practices. They have now got it verified. They've taken it to the clean air regulator and they have been awarded Australian carbon credit units. So those are already there. You can Google the clean air regulator in Australia. I can send you articles on it. And those guys I mean, the 7th farm there's a magazine in Australia called Beef Central, and in their September edition, they did a feature on the 7th farm to get through. And, they got, I think, 94,000 Australian carbon credit units which were sold for 93 Australian dollars a ton And, on his farm, that equated for his seven years activity, 8.8 million Australian dollars for cattle grazing, whose beef product could come into the United Kingdom without any barrier whatsoever and undermine any of beef production in the British Isles, whether it be the UK or the Republic of Ireland. Hence the reason the editor in the Irish Farmers Journal last week was "be wary of Australia!"
John Gilliland: So this is moving at a pace, Paul, and we've been asleep at the wheel. My job is to actually scan. I have just been invited by Woolworths, which is the top retailer in Australia. I am to be their guest speaker at Australia Beef May 2024. Because although they're leading in things, the granularity that I've approached and I've just taken it further and they've asked me to be their keynote speaker in Australia, as I say, next May. So my issue is that there are some really pertinent issues as we speak about the Windsor Framework, but actually, that's here and now, what people aren't seeing is the big picture. We have allowed Brexit to dominate and, we've been asleep at the wheel and we haven't watched what's going on. What I am saying is the European Commission are moving on, the European Parliament are moving on a speed at this for a— what will probably happen, it'll happen in two stages, Paul, is first of all, there will be a ring fence trading scheme for within the land based sector to get the land based food production sector to turn its ship around. But at some stage, that will then be opened up, and brought into the total emissions trading scheme. Now, some people, I mean, Michael O'Leary would love to come and buy our carbon credits tomorrow. And two things I'm saying to farmers is, first of all, sell nothing until you've done your full footprint, because you may need your surplus carbon to be an inset against the unavoidable emissions coming from the rumen of a cow within your own farm. So that's the first thing I'm saying to them. So know your numbers. The second thing is, actually, we need to put our own house in order in our sector, because it is the greenhouse gas inventory, it is a scope three emission declarations that are screwing us. And that allows then the other lobbies out there, whether it be animal welfare people, environmentalists or plant based food people, to absolutely ridicule this sector. And a lot of it unfairly.
Wrapping Up
Gerard Deane: So thanks to John for that, to his very technical contribution. But, it does really say a lot about how farming is changing here and also how it needs to change to help protect our environment.
Gerard Deane: So that's that for this episode. Thanks goes out to all the usual people. First, to William and John for taking part. To Paul for pulling together the interviews and the hard work and research that he's put into this, as well as Michael for editing. And of course, to our funders, the Community Relations Council for Northern Ireland, for funding this podcast. And as always, all previous podcast episodes are available through the Hollywood Trust website.