It’s conference season for arable farmers

Both events highlighted the fact that the growing of crops will be at the heart of production agriculture’s response to the challenge of climate change.

The Ulster Arable Society Conference was hosted in conjunction with the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) and the Ulster Farmers’ Union.

The event was held at CAFRE’s Greenmount campus. Northern Ireland’s agriculture minister, Andrew Muir MLA, gave the keynote address.

He highlighted the role that crop production plays from both a food production and environmental sustainability perspective.

Cropping accounts for approximately five per cent of Northern Ireland’s farmed area (31,800ha), producing an annual output valued at around £86M.

The Minister confirmed the inherently low carbon footprint of crop production relative to livestock enterprises.

He wants to see both arable farming and horticultural production develop further, both as centres of food production and key contributors to the North’s overall response to the challenge of climate change.

Making this happen will require action to be taken on a number of fronts.

These include the development of more efficient crop rotation systems, the greater use of slurries and organic manures as arable fertilisers plus the growing of cover crops in order to reduce nutrient leaching from tillage soils during the winter months while also improving water quality.

Minister Muir also confirmed that his department officials will work to ensure that issues that relate to the future use of pesticides will be addressed in a fair and equitable manner.

He added: “But going for growth only is not the priority. I am confident that all the farming sectors can work to achieve a sustainable future both from an economic and environmental protection perspective.”

The minister strongly believes that the recently announced Farming with Nature Programme will be a game changer across agriculture as a whole in Northern Ireland.

He envisages all the land used for farming purposes being made eligible for the new scheme. He views the programme as having the potential to deliver new enterprises for many farming businesses.

Minister Muir further explained: “Farming is key to the improvement of the environment in Northern Ireland, across the board.

Additional information regarding the new programme will be made available at this year’s Balmoral Show.

Turning to other issues, Minister Muir said he disagreed totally with the decision taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to include farm land within the scope of the UK’s inheritance tax measures, adding: “Farm families in Northern Ireland will be disproportionately impacted by the new measure.”

Protein Aid

Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) policy director, Rosemary Agnew, also spoke at the arable conference.

She indicated that Northern Ireland’s Protein Aid Scheme is under review: the current measure runs through until the end of the 2026 growing season.

Dr Agnew also confirmed the success of the measure up to this point. In 2020 a total of 152ha of protein crops were grown under the scheme. The figure rose to 803ha in 2024.

The scheme delivers a support payment of £330/ha towards the production of eligible crops: spring beans, peas and lupins. Currently there is scope to provide support within the measure of up to 1,300ha of crop output.

Rosemary Agnew further explained: “The review of the Protein Aid measure will be undertaken by the Agri-Food and Bioscience Institute.

“This work is already underway. It will look specifically at the environmental impact of growing protein crops in Northern Ireland.

“It will also look at expanding the number of crops options that can be included within a future scheme.”

She added that Northern Ireland’s farm minister, Andrew Muir, is broadly supportive of the Protein Aid measure.

The DAERA representative pointed to the potential of increasing the footprint of the arable sector, following many years of progressive decline in favour of grassland output.

Where future support measures are concerned, Rosemary Agnew pointed to the plans in train to develop new capital grant schemes, a number of which should prove attractive to arable farmers.

Turning to the future area-based support measures that will be made available in Northern Ireland, Rosemary Agnew highlighted two important qualifying criteria that must be met by participating farmers.

She explained: “Full participation in the Soil Nutrient Health Scheme will be a mandatory requirement. This commitment will extend to the actual soil testing and analysis plus the commensurate training that is available as an integral part of the scheme.

“There will also be a requirement for farmers to measure the actual carbon footprint of their businesses.

“An announcement regarding which carbon calculator will be used in Northern Ireland is expected in the near future.”

Significantly, the DAERA official sees the Soil Nutrient Health Scheme as the forerunner of a programme which will actively require farmers to develop nutrient management plans for their businesses.

And looking further ahead, this work may well be included as part of the pre-condition for eligibility, where future farm support measures are concerned.

Teagasc Tillage Conference

The 2025 Teagasc national tillage conference featured a specific debate on the growing threat posed by pesticide resistance within the crops’ sector.

More resistant varieties, changes in sowing dates and crop rotations, along with the need for additional decision support services, are just some of the mitigation measures envisaged in this context.

Robert McDougall, a researcher with Teagasc Crop Science, confirmed the priorities contained within the European Union’s (EU’s) Farm to Fork Strategy.

This policy necessitates a 50% reduction in pesticide usage, including a 50% reduction in the use of ‘more hazardous’ substances.

However, existing data as to what impact this might have on Irish tillage farms is limited. Moreover, international data cannot be relied upon to inform the impacts for Ireland.

The research scientist commented: “Replicated field trials would be ideal, but these are time and resource intensive. Instead, we looked to tap an untapped data resource: the knowledge of experts.

A total of 17 specialists were recruited from across Ireland’s tillage sector and anonymously surveyed about the impacts meeting the targets may have on yield in wheat, barley and oats, pesticide resistance and current management versus integrated pest management (IPM) practices.

Robert McDougall again: “After the first round of the survey, we summarised the group response and provided it as feedback to the participants, allowing them to revise their answers if they thought necessary.

“This iterative process, often called a Delphi survey, is a way of adding a level of objectivity to data derived from expert opinion.”

Specifically, where winter wheat is concerned, the panel of experts expected crop yields to decline by 15% on account of lower fungicide use and 10% due to lower insecticide use.

The experts also ranked their top IPM measures where the adoption of reduced fungicide, insecticide and herbicide measures is concerned.

Where fungicide reductions are concerned, the cited measures were: the use of resistant/tolerant cultivars; changes in sowing dates; and changes in crop rotations;

For insecticide reductions the most strongly recommended measures were: the use of resistant/tolerant cultivars to Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus; changes in sowing date; and decision support services / monitoring;

And for herbicide reductions: the IPM management listing centred on changes in crop rotations; the greater use decision support services / monitoring; and changes in sowing dates.

Robert McDougall believes these expert opinions constitute a framework around which future trial work can be developed.

He concluded: “Strategically, we need to now focus on accelerated development of the key mitigation measures.

“Resilient varieties, cultural control strategies for weed mitigation, and better provision of tailored decision support services which allow for more precise and integrated pesticide use.

“While the experts didn’t think these measures would be a panacea for the expected yield losses, if they become more of a mainstay of pest management in a lower pesticide future then there’s the potential they may be able to have a much greater impact.”

Building up carbon levels in tillage soils

Tillage soils represent significant sumps for stored carbon. However, adding to these carbon levels will be a slow process.

This was one of the main themes addressed by Teagasc soil scientist, Dr. Guilia Bondi, courtesy of her presentation to the 2025 national tillage onference.

Carbon levels within Irish tillage soils are currently in the range 48t to 208t/ha. Soil type has a critically important influence on this figure.

However, soil carbon levels, across the board, tend to be must higher than in may other European countries: Spain being a case in point.

Bondi defined sequestration as the change of carbon stocks over time. She confirmed that crop management techniques can build up soil carbon levels over time.

And this is a slow process. However, the use of improper management systems can wipe out all of this good work in a relatively short period of time.

The Teagasc representative further explained: “Carbon uptakes across sandy and clay soils are similar. However, the rate of sequestration within sandy soils is lower than that find in heavier clay soils.”

Bondi attributed the ability of clay particles in soil to bond carbon as being the key factor in this regard.

In peat soils that are left in an undamaged state carbon to and from the atmosphere remain very low.

According to Bondi, 30% of soil carbon can be found below 30cms from the surface. She confirmed that tillage systems can have an impact on soil carbon levels within a short term scenario.

However, ploughing has the impact of burying carbon sources added to soil, a significant proportion of which can be stored at these lower levels.

Conference delegates were told that managing soil carbon effectively can significantly reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and improve agricultural productivity.

Carbon sequestration can help to reduce global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and in turn, offsetting the warming affect associated with high concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Looking to the future carbon credits may well be a source of additional income for Irish tillage farmers. But this will only become a reality once detailed sequestration and carbon storage figures are known for all soil types.

This issue will be actively addressed courtesy of Teagasc research over the coming years. Critical within all of this will be enhanced knowledge on how cropagronomy impacts on carbon sequestration.