Best Practice

Global Scale

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations provides a range of best practice guidance in the areas of forestry and agriculture in relation to adaption to climate change. This guidance may be applied to both developing and developed countries. For further information on the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Irish Agriculture

Food production in Ireland is mainly based on milk and meat production from grass-based systems. As such, Irish farmers are relatively efficient, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of product, when compared to more intensive production systems.

Efforts to reduce methane emissions in Irish agriculture are likely to prove difficult. Although Irish beef production contains a high greenhouse gas commitment, its substitution by beef imports from other areas may have an even worse carbon footprint.

Irish Forestry

COFORD, the National Council for Forest Research and Development, have a number of best practice publications designed to advise commercial foresters on a range of issues as listed below:

• Carbon sequestration in Irish forest ecosystems

• Development of tools and systems for reporting on forest carbon stocks and stock change under the Kyoto protocol and the UNFCCC

• The use of Ecological Site Classification in adapting forests and their management to climate change

• Soil carbon stock changes and greenhouse gas fluxes in Irish forests

• Carbon stocks and carbon changes in harvested wood product