50,000 farmers sought for phase one of Signpost Advisory Programme
The Teagasc Signpost Advisory Programme has been established to assist farmers make their farms more environmentally sustainable; it will play a key role in the implementation and adoption of technologies highlighted in the Teagasc Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC).
Published on July 12th, MACC 2023 highlights a suite of measures that need to be adopted nationally to achieve agriculture’s binding 2030 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. Read more on these targets and measures here.
As part of the MACC launch, Tom Curran, Teagasc Head of Advisory Services, gave an overview of the programme and its ambitions over the coming years. He said: “A key pillar of the Teagasc Climate Action Strategy is the introduction of a Signpost Advisory Programme.
“We are very grateful for the collaboration that we have with 62 partners in the Signpost Programme as it is. We have 120 demonstration farmers, right across the spectrum of enterprises, distributed throughout the country, and they are really important, really good quality farmers that are adopting the technologies and using their farms as a focus for farmers at local level to adopt the technologies further.
Tom Curran, Teagasc Head of Advisory Services, pictured at the launch of MACC 2023.
“To spread that out to the 130,000-140,000 farmers that we have in the country, the Signpost Advisory Programme is critical in that,” Tom explained.
Teagasc has dedicated 21 advisors to the Teagasc Signpost Advisory Programme, which is available to all farmers and is free of charge. This team will provide dedicated advisory and training support to farmers to develop a plan that is appropriate to their farm.
“We have set ambitious targets of 50,000 farmers to engage in this programme by 2030 and we need to achieve that."
“At the moment, our advisors are busy recruiting farmers. Many farmers have already registered and engaged with the programme; workshops and discussion group meetings are ongoing at the moment. We have a wide network of discussion groups across dairy, beef, tillage and sheep and we are targeting farmers in those groups as we speak,” Tom said when outlining how farmers will be identified initially to participate in the programme.
The below video provides more details on the Teagasc Signpost Advisory Programme:
AgNav
The role of AgNav – a development between Teagasc, Bord Bia and ICBF, with the support of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, was also presented.
This digital platform, Tom explained, will provide a science-led, decision-support and planning tool to farmers to enable climate action. AgNav will be a key enabling tool for advisors in the delivery of the Signpost Advisory Programme.
The AgNav platform will allow farmers to quantify their farm’s gaseous emissions (both GHG and ammonia, referred to as ‘Know My Number’), while then facilitating the creation of a farm specific, action list (referred to as ‘Make My Plan’). The digital platform will provide individual farmers with farm-specific indicators of their current status (baseline or starting point) and progress made over time in the uptake of mitigation measures and reductions in emissions.
For more information on the Marginal Abatement Cost Curve 2023, click here. To sign up to the Teagasc Signpost Advisory Programme, click here.