From Protest to Partnership: Rethinking Europe’s Agricultural Transition

[music] >> Okay. Welcome to everybody in the room and to everybody who's joining us online. I think we're going to be in for a very interesting hour ahead of us. Uh this program this event today is part of the I I I is pathways program. And we're delighted to be joined by Dagmar Droogsma who is the agricultural program lead at Project Temple which she'll describe in more detail and subsequently the panel uh involving Pip Pip Pip Pippa Hackett, Ian Marshall, and Jan Moore. And I'll say a little bit more about them later on. But without further ado, I think we'll uh go directly we'll start with with Dagmar. Dagmar's background is that she's had an extensive career in the UK's civil service in the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. She assumed the position of director of industry for the Scottish Whisky Association in 2018 and has worked as an independent advisor for the European Environmental Defense Fund. Her current position as an independent consultant stems from a broad career and in-depth knowledge of UK, EU, and UN systems and her work at Project Temple aims to realign and rebuild an agri-food system that is socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable. So, I hand you over directly over to Dagmar to introduce us today. Thank you. >> Thank you, Tom. And also thank you to the IA for hosting me. So, we go straight into the presentation and let me see how this works. Do I go like this? Yes. I first tell you a little bit about our research context and also methodology. Uh then I dive into public support for only two slides, but to give you a flavor of how the public feels about those issues. Understanding farmers, challenges, their identity, and also their values, and then we go to recommendations. So, lots of clicking. Um we started about a year ago with what is our first thematic program on agriculture. And uh you could ask why. And the why is really that agriculture sector is like no other sector when we talk about Europe going to climate neutrality. It faces so many challenges like geopolitically, um regulatory complexity, uh generational renewal. But also, what I personally think is unique about agriculture is that it's at the forefront of being impacted by climate change. And we definitely see that in a very dramatic way in the south of Europe. Perhaps less so yet in Ireland, but also here farmers tell us that they see that wetter winters and drier summers has impacted on their costs. And they're also one of the sectors that are expected to deliver a big contribution to Europe going climate neutral. So, reasons enough to focus on that, particularly and many of you will know that we haven't seen too much progress in the last couple of years. We ask ourselves, what is really standing in the way? And the agriculture transition is unlike other transitions. It's not just a technology issue. Arguably in the energy sector, you focus on technology. You still have issues with, you know, consumers implementing things, but it's largely technology. For agriculture, that is not the case. And we firmly believe that for the agriculture sector, we really got to focus on what this means for farmers, their livelihoods, and also their communities in order to move further on the transition. So, in terms of our objectives, they're twofold. One is to improve the understanding of what the transition means for agriculture sector. And secondly, it is to clarify the political conditions that are necessarily to deliver changes that work for farmers. Not just for policy makers, because at the moment farmers do not necessarily feel that they are being addressed in a way that works for them. What we have looked at is then to see what the key priorities are to help accelerate the transition, but also how policy design and communication can support that. Our methodology is based on classic sort of voter research. So, we've made use of qualitative research. That means focus group with voters, with farmers, and also interviews with farmers to supplement that. And we focused on four countries initially: Ireland, France, Poland, and the Netherlands. We chose those four countries because between them, you could say they're a proxy for almost every agriculture challenge that happens in Europe. And then we've also done quality quantitative research, which is polling. That happened at the end of our work, and that was also to test some of the findings that we had. I'll start with public support, and you know, I won't read out that slide to you. These are all issues that you will recognize from media and what have you. It's the four top concerns to the public. The only thing that I want to mention is about cost of living. Our polling showed there that at the top of the concerns for consumers, voters, and the public is the cost of energy, but very quickly followed by food. These are obviously both essential parts of their spending, and it's no surprise that they come at the top. In terms of voters, though, um you know, our research showed that ultimately voters focus on their own concerns, and that's only logical. But they also do have broadly, you know, a lot of sympathy for farmers. And um the slide highlights a couple of the issues that we found. Uh the support is an in principle support. So, they do support sustainable farming, but it has got to align with what is important to them. And what we picked up are issues such as local food production, uh environmental responsibility, and such. Um voters do have concerns about fairness in the farming sector. So, as a consequence, they do sympathize with farmers, and they particularly have picked on up on issues of cheap imports coming from outside the EU and such. There is a willingness to buy sustainably produced food that costs a bit more. And that is mainly because there's this perception that food that is sustainably produced is of higher quality and also it's healthier. But it's conditional. The willingness does relate to wanting to see that farmers benefit from what they pay more as opposed to supply change. And that willingness is also undercut at the same time because most members of the public do not necessarily believe that they can trust eco-labeling or food certification. You know, so this is the arguably arguably a message to policy makers, try to improve the quality of data and the trust for consumers. And then lastly voters very firmly believe that the responsibility for moving to a future-proofing farming has got to be shared. That the cost cannot just fall on farmers, that government have got a role to play, that the supply chain including retailers have got a role to play, but also consumers themselves. So this is about the public. I think what I found the most important interesting issue of our research is about farmers. And also there I start with some of the top concerns for farmers. Um I really don't want to dwell on that too much. I think in the room and people who are on on the video link you recognize all of those issues. So um it's just important to take that into account because when you are a farmer, this is how you will perceive new change that is perhaps imposed on you. In terms of our research, there were two problems at the top that really need to be solved from a farmer's perspective. The first one is the economic challenge. And this is This is really seen as something that is very immediate. Um and I should also say here that farmers told us that they really feel that the public, but also politicians, see them as one group. And within the group of farmers, there are those farmers that are perhaps larger and more commercial that are profitable, but actually a large majority of farmers in all four countries and in the EU does operate on thin margins, difficult, low bargaining power, um and they're dependent on subsidies, etc. So, for them, the crucial question is always about what does this change mean? Will it make my farm more viable or not? Secondly, is the identity challenge. And this is You will probably know that. Farming is not simply seen as a job by farmers. It's a vocation. It's rooted in in principles of stewardship, um responsibility, and also continuity. So, because this identity involves a very strong sense of pride and professionalism, it it means that when rules come to them, where they feel they're exposed on them without necessarily their input, and that they're disconnected from practical realities, those new rules are often seen as a threat to their identity. And I will go a bit deeper into what identity really is from a farmer's perspective. Um this slide has got quite a bit of detail, so bear with me. Um I start with um identity. And what I found actually really quite special is that identity is perceived in the same way in France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Poland. And it's something to stress because, you know, I've worked all over Europe, and every country thinks it's unique, but this is shared in terms of how farmers feel about their identity. First of all, they see themselves as custodians of the land, nature, animals, their farms. And that part of their identity focuses on care and responsibility and and stewardship. It means caring for the now, the present, but also future generations. The second is very fundamental to farmers. They see themselves as providers as the nation for the nation. Um they underpin society and economy, but it is not just about production, it's also about contribution to society. So, that is also something to take into account. They see themselves as enterprising, but not in the sort of conventional way as business people and enterprises. It is something much more practical and which also relates to the fact that many of them don't have that bargaining power in the supply chain or or are dependent on subsidies. They see it as something that really relates to their day-to-day farming. It's about how you cope with uncertainty, how you deal with impacts that surprise you, and how you keep on going also when there are lots of problems on your farm. And then lastly, it's tenacious. All farmers feel, yeah, they're hard working, they're tenacious, and that really plays out in terms of how they keep on going through uncertainty. They keep their farms open. They still get up early in the morning, you know, they continue with their work even though the situation may be tough. And they do want the public and also policy makers to recognize that. I mean, one interesting thing I think about farming identity actually comes from the IAA's own work, and that is that farmers in Ireland firmly place their farming identity over their Irish identity. And I thought that was quite an interesting finding. We go to values. And I start with agency. And agency really matters most in how change is being carried out. So, generally, farmers may accept the legitimacy of rules and policies, but it is the agency to decide how they meet those rules on their own farms that really matters. It's partly practical point. So, it's about the belief that they know their land better than anyone else, and that they want to judge for themselves what work best on their farms. But it's also about identity and emotion. A factor that is crucially important to agency, whether agency is experienced as something that they can execute or whether it's undermined is long-term certainty. Um farming operates on multi-year cycles, and what we've seen in all four countries and in Europe altogether is a constant shift of policies, really short funding horizons, and that undermines agency. It basically means you can't plan for the future. You so often can't even plan for the next 5 years. Community partially so important because many farmers feel that they operate often in isolation, but it goes beyond that. It's a deep commitment to preserving the rural community and and regional regional identity. It also relates to sense of belonging, which is about this point of sometimes being isolated. And fairness. Fairness in our research showed up as very much relating to assuring that the cost of the agriculture transition is shared equitable. And it did show up differently in the four countries. In Ireland and France, we saw that that heavily focused on trade agreements. You know, you've seen that here on Mercosur. It's this feeling that producers from the other side of the world have got less standards, and therefore it's unfair competition. In the Netherlands, fairness very much focuses on neighboring countries, which is logical when you're a small country embedded um with others, and there's a feeling that rules in the Netherlands are stricter than say in Germany or in Belgium. And in Poland, it very much focuses on this feeling that the Ukraine has gotten advantage by cheap grain imports, particularly after the war. Each country also has some specifics, you know, that are not necessarily shared. I won't go into all because I can talk about it for a very long time. But for example, Ireland and France share this feeling where farmers really really care about their status. And that is about being respected as professionals, being respected as producing high-quality food. Um in Poland, something that came out which I thought was really interesting is modernity. And although our research shows that farmers in Poland still hold on to tradition very much so, modernization is key to how they see progress. And you know, arguably when you know the history of Poland, you'll understand that. They had to leapfrog into a new type of agriculture. Um but that is really important. And then the Netherlands, what stands out quite firmly, contrary to all the other countries, is that farmers there tend to be more pragmatic. So generally, they see the transition as innovative, pragmatic, and in step with the opportunity to have real progress on their economic and environmental sides. So, that's the findings of our research. But you know, where does that leave us? And this is where I come to a conclusion based on our findings of our farmers research. Um our research showed that there is a latent willingness from farmers to look at the future and to engage in shaping that future. But, there are some conditions attached. They do strongly feel that policy makers have got to act differently. They've got to respect their identity and values. And also, they have to address livelihood issues. I think that's sort of the top-level conclusion. Underneath it, this issue of uncertainty came back in every single discussion, in every single focus group. And this relates to this question where they are being asked to deliver a transformation that no one has really defined. So, how can they plan? How can they invest if they don't know what the role of agriculture will be in the 2040s or 50s? And you know, what will it actually mean for their farming? What scale will farming be? And what will the standards be? So, that is the overall conclusion. And I'll go to recommendations, and I guess based on that conclusion, you should not be surprised by what our recommendations are. So, if we truly want to accelerate implementation of farming that is future-proof, you know, where the economics, the social aspects, and environmental issues are balanced. And we want durable support from that from farmers, then policy makers have got a first task that they have got to establish a very clear vision for what agriculture will look like as part of a climate-neutral Europe. And they also have got to ensure consistency between countries. Now, this is a huge task, easier said than done, but there is an opportunity, and this is in a way where I'll speak to the Irish presidency, because as part of the current CAP negotiations, that is a discussion that can take place. So, take watch that. Secondly, though, it's also about action at the national level. And this is about having national frameworks that enable farmers and investors to have confidence to plan. And it also should allow for enough flexibility so that shared goals set at the overarching level can be implemented. And again, there's a route for doing this, and arguably, this is a easier route, because every EU country will have the obligation to provide new CAP national strategic plans. And in order to make them meaningful, they can be used for this purpose. So, something for governments, but also, I guess, something for farmers to really demand this from the governments. Have meaningful CAP national strategic plans. But then lastly, engage farmers and wider communities in this discussion, as opposed to giving them a feeling, again, that is just imposed on them. And the only thing that I want to say about this recommendation is that our advice is that policy makers look beyond the usual suspects they talk to, because many of the farmers we spoke to do not necessarily feel represented by the usual voices. So, it may be a bit harder to talk to a wider community, but it is important for policy makers to do so. So, that's my presentation, Tom. I've I've got a sort of a quote at the end. Um and you arguably I I've finished on a bit of a dramatic and emotional note, um but I feel really strongly about this. I feel that it is incredibly important to get this right for farmers, but not just for farmers, for Europe, for food security, and for everything that relates to it. So, there's a window now to grab that opportunity, and we should go for it. If we don't, my nightmare scenario is, well, exactly as the slide lines out, and I'm sure that no one would want to go there. And then, if you want to download the full report, there's even a QR code. So, thank you. >> All right, thank you very much. I mean, just to pick up on what you said at the end, uh this report, I think, is both very relevant and very timely, because we're facing in the next couple of years into big decisions about the future of broad European policy and broad national policy. And there is going to be more of an emphasis on member states making their own decisions for their future within some kind of common framework. And that, I think, is the real relevance of this study. It's giving us some very good starting points. Um just to say that for those of you online, you're able to join the discussion using the Q&A function, uh which you can see on on your screen. And if you want to send some questions, and there are already some in, uh please please send them in and we we we'll try to get to get to them. Now, I'm delighted we have a very I think good panel here. And I just briefly introduce them. Pick Dr. Pippa Hackett is an organic beef and sheep farmer from County Offaly, where she farms with her husband Mark and her four children. As a former Minister of State in the Department of Agriculture, she championed significant growth in the organic sector and implemented supports for climate and biodiversity friendly practice such as multi-species swords, red clover silage and agroforestry. And if I may make a personal comment, I think she made a great job in her role as Minister. She was also responsible for European Innovation Partnership funding for farm and community diversity projects. And in 2004 24 launched a call for longer-term sustainable agricultural projects sharing nearly 18 million euro in funding. She currently manages Project Baseline working with regenerative farmers to assess the impacts of this approach on farm ecology and finances and the cultural factors which shape that practice. I'll introduce the other panelists as we as we go. But Pippa, would you like to start off? >> Thank you. That might have been as Tom said very timely report. And at a very we sort of see it say this every 5 years very crucial, you know, cornerstone for agriculture and a juncture we face, but you know, every five or so years we find ourselves in a similar situation. The challenges aren't going away. You could argue the decline in in farm numbers continues across Europe and indeed in Ireland. And it's a it's something policy makers, communities, society are going to have to really grasp and and work together to to try and address. And I think some of the concerns there you see in the report from farmers in particular, um I mean, they're not there's nothing massively surprising there, but I think what what's coming through to me from it is that many of the farmers across Europe and indeed Ireland are worrying about things that are essentially uncontrollable to them. And if you spend your life in any walk of life worrying about the uncontrollables, everything seems somewhat futile and beyond um fixing. And I suppose that's where I've always came come from as a minister and as a farmer myself is to try and encourage people to focus on what they can control. And we're we're talking about agency here, and I think that's what policy makers going forward should be enabling agency in farmers, enabling them to make more of those decisions, control more of the controllables. And that really means looking at what you do inside your farm gate. What are you doing? You can you have choices to make there. You have very few choices to make in the marketplace, which is volatile. You have no choices in terms of what the climate is doing, but you have choices in how you adapt to that, for example. So, I think the challenges will continue to grow both economically, climatically, biodiversity loss, water, all of that's going to be an issue, but farmers individually and collectively have an opportunity to to embrace other ways of farming. And we've been talking about this for for, you know, the the scientific communities across the board, across all economic models about a system change. And we're seeing it more and more in the energy system. It's, you know, it's becoming electrified and renewable. We still have to see that in a big way in agriculture. We really haven't seen that change. Um and really what you're talking about is is removing the the fossil fuel input. Because when you do that, you have to farm in a different way. And while we can rely on, you know, technological advances are are really important in agriculture, um but ecological advances are as important in my view, because that's where you get the real sort of harness that renewable, if you like, power that's in nature, in our soils, in our in our landscapes. Um I think the the the the comment about farmers being viewed by the public as one cohort, you can sort of zoom back from that as well. And the agri-food sector is sometimes seen as one big one big industry, one big sector. But there are so many vested interests in that, and I think we can see from the data over the the last number of decades that ultimately that the people who get hurt are the the smaller people in that sector, whether it's the smaller farmers or the smaller um people who sell, you know, the the smaller retailers, for example. And if we play that out over the next 20, 30 years, yeah, we're going to end up with a a number of super farms, maybe one or two owners of all the all the retail outlets, processors, all all um centralized, and I'm not sure where that leaves anything in terms of environmental sustainability um or social sustainability. So, agreeing, I think, on a set a set of guiding principles across the board is is essential here. And I don't think we've quite nailed that. I mean, we see debates all the time about, you know, methane within agriculture. Um we see debates about water quality. Or who is responsible for poor water quality? It's continually argued the whole way. And in the meantime, things don't get any better. So, I think there's a role there for the certainly for the policy makers. But there are green shoots, and there are signs from a grassroots perspective from farmers who have broken away, if you like, from the from the normal system. I mean, at the end of the day, conventional farming's probably only working for 10 or 15% of the the top farmers across Europe. The rest are either struggling along, petrified of what's coming around the corner, but there's a smaller cohort who sort of broken away from that cycle and are doing things differently on their farms. So, they're removed from the vulnerability of fertilizer prices. They're removed from the vulnerability of fuel prices cuz they're doing things differently on their farms. And they're And they're And people will say, "Oh, they're not producing." They are. They are profitable. And it It's about time, as well, we've removed we from a farming perspective, and I can speak as a farmer, I'd much rather be a profitable farmer than somebody who produces more of something. Profitability has to be sort of replaced into the the productivity language, I think, as well. I mean, that's a broad sort of view from my own perspective and where I see the potential as a solution. Thanks. >> I think very pertinent comments. We'll move on to Ian. Ian Marshall, OBA, he's head of business development and policy at the Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy at Queen's University Belfast, having previously worked with the university's Institute for Global Food Security. He's a former president of the Ulster Farmers' Union. And in 2018, he made history as the first Ulster Unionist elected to Shadow Aren, serving on committees covering Brexit, climate change, and the environment, and rural and community development. He's also served on numerous agri-food policy bodies, including the Agri-Food Strategy Board for Northern Ireland and the UK Board for NFU Mutual. His work focuses on building collaboration between business, academia, and politics, north, south, east, and west. He's a frequent visitor to the institute and to Dublin, and it's always good to see him in >> Thank you, Tom. Hey, thanks, Tom. Thanks, everyone, for the invitation to join today. Thanks, Dagmar, for your report. Unlike my peers and colleagues in Queens, I spent as a warm-up and a build-up to France playing Spain, I read Dagmar's report. So, that that's that's that's that's commitment. But, I I think it was interesting. I think it told told me some new things, but it told me a lot of things that I already knew as a as a farmer. I suppose one one of the the things that comes out of the report is the fact that sustainability means different things to different people. So, I work with a guy in the university who bought who invested in a Tesla car last week, and he thinks he's fantastic. He's doing his bit for the planet, but he forgot to tell everybody he's been in Switzerland twice skiing over the winter. So, that's his bit. He's eased his conscience. He's bought a electric car, so that's his bit. So, sustainability means different things to different people, and especially to farmers, many of whom believe they are doing everything they can to be sustainable, but in reality, they could do much better. I I suppose interesting I get quite uncomfortable with the the conversation going to the small farm versus large farm debate. And this was best answered one one time about 30 years ago. I was in a meeting, and the guy was asked about should I invest my farm? Should I should I invest and grow bigger and scale my business? And he said, "Well, you make a decision. Small farm, small debt. Large farm, large debt. Which is better?" And and I think we sometimes miss the fact that that sustainability I could take you to some of the most sustainable farm businesses that are milking huge herds of cows because their carbon footprinting is good, their emissions good, their the welfare is good, their environmental credentials are good. And I could take you to a guy in the Belfast hills who's milking 25 cows, and he has the biggest carbon footprint in dairy you could ever believe. But, that's the reality. We need to be very careful how we measure this and look at it because it means different things to different people. I work with a guy in the south of England who grows 6,000 acres of vegetables. They grow asparagus in Bognor Regis. You can look at the factory they process it in, you can look at the supermarket they sell the the asparagus in. Yet his asparagus he grows in Peru in that supermarket has a lower carbon footprint because they grow three times the kilograms of dry matter in Peru, which completely offsets all the transportation. But if you ask the people in Bognor Regis, they want the asparagus grown there and sold there because that must be better. I suppose agriculture has suffered in a in my lifetime and still goes to this day with the it's supply led not demand driven. You know, so there's there's no cognizance of what the market wants and it's slow to react to market changes, which leaves it in a in a very precarious and very vulnerable position. But I think when we look at the environmental challenges and the objectives and our and our ambitions with climate change, sometimes I'm critical that we focus on on dates which are just too far away. So 2030, 2040, 2050. I'm 58 years old. By 2050, I will be if I'm alive, I will be 83. Do I wake at night in a cold sweat worrying about 2050? No, I don't. And that's a metaphor for where chief executives are or farmers running their businesses are because what we got to do is we got to measure today. And we got to demonstrate that if if we do something we can make it better next year and better the next year. And if government will support that, we can do it faster. I think cuz it's all it's all about the obviously the measuring is managing. I think there's a legacy within Europe and I think it's it's it's it's it's it's sort of brought out in the in the report Dagmar. Europe haven't been particularly good at rewarding good practice or best practice. They support farmers via subsidy and if you had a headage payment or an area based payment and you can identify the stock or the land, you get the payment. There's not much There hasn't historically been an emphasis on if you can change behavior and do things better, we support you more. Uh I suppose it in in closing the work that we're doing at Queen's, we have taken a position on this and we believe that there's something fundamentally wrong with policy when you look at policy around this because we need a whole of government mission-based approach to all of this. It's lacking at the minute. People who's in in government, you know what it's like. It's siloed. I work in the university, it's siloed. Farming, it's siloed. So, we need we need a whole of government mission-based approach. If you use a mission-based approach, you can identify outputs, you can identify timelines, and you can put some a bit more of the the certainty back into the conversation. So, I think that's that's really really important. One of the things that we've considered is and I spoke last year at the the dairy dairy event in Kildare. It was interesting cuz they all focused on food. It was about dairy, it was about cheese, butter, milk markets, dairy markets. And one thing that we're trying to say to the agricultural sector is this is much more than food because you are in a prime position to be influential and to quote my colleague, Professor David Rooney, it's not about decarbonizing agriculture, it's about decarbonizing the rest of society. And that's where agriculture has a huge role to play when we look at environmental concerns and sustainability because if we reposition agriculture to be used much more than food, the work that we're doing at the university is about looking at if we produce all of this food and comes with that all of the waste, how can we utilize that waste to drive more value out of products, to drive more revenue streams for the farmers, to keep farmers doing what they love to do because whether we like it or whether we don't, farmers don't actually wake up in the night in a cold sweat worrying about climate change. They worry about paying the bills, getting the kids through college. They worry about putting diesel in the tank and food on the table. That's the reality of it. We may not like that, but that's the reality of the situation we're in. I think and with the work we've done at the university, it's interesting that I think this actually reinforces this finding is that if you keep telling an industry that you're bad and you're producing emissions and you're damaging the plan planet and if we had less of you, it would be a better place, then they're going to put the barriers down. They're going to close up. If you keep telling an industry that reduce is the way forward, they're going to close up. They're not going to talk to you. I spoke to a Department of Energy meeting a few months ago in Queens and there was consensus around the room by people who are primarily non-farming food people that if we had less farmers, there'd be less emissions, the world would be a better place. And it was really interesting cuz I said, "Okay, so we all agree that climate change is real." And they said, "Yep, climate change is real. Do you all agree we've all a responsibility?" And they said, "Yeah, yeah, we all agree." I says, "So you're proposing 20% reduction in livestock on this island." And they said, "That's That's a fair start." Well, I says, "Could I propose that we reduce everybody's salary around the table by 20% and that money goes into a central pot for climate change? Because that's just what you've agreed to." And they said, "Mm, well, no, I'm not comfortable with that." So for me, it was ironic that they wanted to see an industry accept that they'd take 20% less revenues, which is how the industry see the reduction, but no one else was prepared to do that because there's a conversation that keeps recurring that climate change and global warming is always someone else's responsibility. As I said to Terry earlier, you know, we take out our phones. Bet there's no phones in the room over 5 years old here. I bet you everybody's on unlimited data. Because if we had less farmers, it would be a better place, but don't touch my mobile phone. So what we've looked at is when we say about when this reinforces the reduction, you you get you get a barrier and an opposition from agriculture, but if we've started to talk about rebalancing because rebalancing is completely different for farmers. It's about getting the balance right. It means if you want to increase, you have to do something somewhere else to get the balance right. So, rebalancing is important. And just in in closing, when you look at government and government policy, we've tried to present this now in in a way that agriculture on this island especially is critical to our our our future health and well-being. We've tried to split the business into the three streams. So, we've tried to look at three services effectively. Nutrient services, carbon services, and energy services. And say to the government, "Okay, here's a sector that can deliver all three." We we live in Northern Ireland with Lough Neagh, largest freshwater body in the UK, but it's heavily contaminated with excess nutrients. It's eutrophic. There's lots of other issues. We're not going to know why that's happening, but So, we've got nutrients from farms which are are one of the part of the problems here. So, the best way we sort of Lough Neagh is by stopping nutrients getting into the watercourses. That's the first thing we do. And we start there. So, we look at nutrient services. When we look at energy services, we spend 5 billion a year in Northern Ireland on buying in energy from other parts of the world. And the math we've done, if we use the agricultural waste, we produce 80% of our own energy from agricultural farm wastes. That's 4 billion of revenue we could generate every year, and that would recur annually every year to grow the local economy. So, that's important for the local side. And then finally, we look at the decarbonization because if we can support agriculture to decarbonize, agriculture can decarbonize other sectors. We're looking at biomethane in trucks. We're looking at biofertilizers to stop importing synthetic fertilizers. We're looking at biochar in construction, very heavy energy-intensive sector. We're looking at how we decarbonize that. So, all of a sudden, farming doesn't become part of the problem. Farming becomes part of the solution. And one of the projects we're working on, we're trying to look at biomethane. Can we get into the local hospital? Because if you can get farmer engagement with communities and the community wealth aspect is really, really important. If you get farmers to buy into that and the community to buy into that, just imagine if that old tractor you're following down the road with a silage trailer or slurry tanker is producing something that actually is putting the energy into the hospital or the local school or a leisure center, all of a sudden it's completely different position that agriculture is in. >> Okay. Thanks for trying to bring that down to very practical levels there again. The final speaker, Dr. Jean Moore, policy policy analyst at the NESC, National Economic and Social Council, where she specializes in social and environmental policy analysis across climate, energy, biodiversity, and sustainable developments. Uh Jean holds a PhD in environmental psychology from the University of Liverpool and is a member of the advisory board of the DCU Center for Climate and Society. Jean, over to you. >> Thanks very much and thank you, Dagmar, for sharing this really fascinating and timely piece of work. I think we all agree on its timeliness. Particularly like the qualitative and the quantitative mix and to give us an insight on farmers' experiences, their concerns, their worries, um and look into the future. And I think um obviously there's a huge imperative now to transition away from fossil fuels in agriculture and land use, but of course all sectors of the economy and society. And this is, I suppose, a a pervasive policy challenge now is how to chart and manage uh a transition given a time of enormous uncertainty and risk in a way that's fair and inclusive uh and brings everyone along. And as an advisory body to the Taoiseach, um NESC tries to bring, I suppose, a perspective drawing on dialogue on shared learning and experience, research, um and we try and act as a trusted intermediary. And we've done work with farmers in agriculture. We did a piece of work on uh a just transition in agriculture and land use in 2023 and many of the themes that you've raised resonate with that work. I wanted to just highlight a number of them. The first is fairness and a just transition. And a just transition means really that the process should be fair, inclusive, and participatory, especially those most affected by any policy. And I think in looking at agriculture and land use, the council recognized really that the agriculture sector could be a primary solution to the climate change and biodiversity loss, but only if the transition is managed in a just and inclusive way. And when we worked with farmers and we had discussions with the agriculture sector as part of our work, one of the key things was thinking about transition not as something out of agriculture because that was the fear, but transition within agriculture and sustainable land use. And reframing it in that way was more inclusive, was more participatory, and took some of the fear around it. And really what the council's work has been pointing out is creating the conditions under which climate action is practical, trusted, and economically viable. Secondly, vision resonates across all our work on energy and agriculture lately, we've been seeing the need for a clear, consistent, and coherent whole-of-society vision for a transition. And in this case towards more sustainable agriculture agriculture and land use, it does require I like a mission emission based approach myself and because it does need to be turned into targeted actions and and comprehensive oversight, but that vision, that shared understanding, that direction forward is is really important. And we've been doing some visioning for 2050 and amazing people are quite happy to go there when they're supported to think freely. And what they felt was hugely important in thinking about that in relation to climate and and biodiversity was a sustainable food system that that was very high in the list and they really wanted to understand how to do that. Our other work on social cohesion, trust, and democracy, on well-being, really understands that we need a holistic, integrated approach to thinking about these policy but so not in their silos, which I completely agree. The other piece is voice. I think dialogue, inclusive dialogue, is a part of what we do, but we see this as being critically important when it comes to farming because we need to work with farmers and rural communities to understand their perspective, their lived experience. And some of our recommendations focused on building trust, tailoring advisory services to what farmers need, aligning incentives for lower emissions and nature-based solutions, being opportunity-led, and focusing on fairness. The other theme is identity. And yes, I think these cultural context and identity are often overlooked and really, really important. Your work really recognized that. And you pointed that to farmers internationally across all of your work as custodians of land, providers of food, entrepreneurial, and tenacious. And I recognize that in farmers in Ireland. I've done work with energy communities. Some of them are farmers. I think of the Kerry dairy energy cooperative down there, Dinny Galvin, talking to me about how he's working with farmers to install solar panels in a collective way, looking for entrepreneurial solutions to these challenges. I think about farmers and and people working in the Burren Life project years ago where they showed us around seeing tangible results from ecosystem services restoration. And I think that's another key thing is is the economics. So, payment for ecosystem services, these business models for nature, including the bioeconomy, but paying for clean water, you know, carbon sequestration, biodiversity restoration, is really, really important. And this is also echoed in a recent a consultation report for Ireland's nature restoration plan that we need a a model where farmers are rewarded for the public goods that they provide. And this needs to be inherent, I think, in one of the economic pieces that we move forward. Lastly, it's around place, and I think place-based approaches are critically important. We've learned from um life projects, from environmental innovation partnerships, the kinds that you're involved in, Pippa, as well, um of some of the insights that we can gain from that. My colleague Neave Garvey did a really interesting piece of work um as part of um uh phase two of the land uh review. And what they what they found was that high-quality engagement is a core success factor of some of these projects. The kinds of peer-to-peer demonstration, tailored advisory services is really critical. But also, what you need is results-based payments. So, really rewarding for ecological systems, really seeing, you know, tangible environmental improvements on the ground. And lastly, they needed tailored and targeted actions. So, the right action in the right place. And I think in chapter six of the land use review, you'll see some of that uh those insights coming through. And I think just just to close here, I think farmers do worry about climate change. The ESRI recently identified that farmers do show a lot of worry about climate change, and the general public tends underestimate how much farmers do think about these things. So, I think it's about understanding where they're coming from and building a just transition and an inclusive approach. >> Thank you. >> [music]