Ireland is better at producing dairy than most other countries. Globally – like it or not – demand for dairy is buoyant. The implications of that are summed up by three Bs – Buoyant, Better and Best. Your correspondent omits to say that Irish dairy is the most GHG-emissions efficient in Europe.
Careful breeding programmes ensure more milk from each cow and as a result, emissions per litre of milk are down. The national herd has grown over the past decade, but it is still smaller than it was in 1986 – and Irish dairy is producing more with less. Your correspondent rightly says that 65pc of dairy’s emissions are methane – he neglects to mention that biogenic methane is a short-lived greenhouse gas, hanging around for a dozen years only in the atmosphere, as opposed to CO2 from fossil fuels, which is there for hundreds of years. For example, while agriculture is indeed the largest contributor to Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions – because we are an agricultural nation – the majority of our emissions come from energy, transport, residential, industrial processes and manufacturing. When it comes to dairy farming’s climate effect, the picture is not quite as clear-cut as your weekend comment piece ( Irish Independent, October 31) would suggest. Truth about dairy emissions not so clear-cut As the great and good discuss the ongoing crisis to our Earth at COP26, there are two things which won’t be discussed by the most powerful of governments: that is the market economy and the continued building of huge defence systems that are threatening our children’s and grandchildren’s future.
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