An event hosted by nature restoration charity Hometree next week will hear a warning that food technologies are likely to cause significant disruption to the meat and dairy industries. Changing Landscapes will take place next Thursday, 30th May at The Falls Hotel, Ennistymon, Co. Clare.
Dustin Benton of Green Alliance will tell attendees that advancements in precision fermentation and cell culture mean that commodities like milk powder will soon be cheaper to produce synthetically than using liquid milk. The knock-on effect of this is a potential collapse in commodities markets, which could disproportionately affect the dairy-dependent Irish farming sector.
Changing Landscapes will outline how those affected can get ahead of any such change, and explore the opportunities that now exist for corporates and investors to help reposition Ireland as a truly green economy and an example of what’s possible.
The conference will also hear that marginal farm incomes could as much as double if landowners were paid the carbon value of the peat and trees on their land. It will examine the opportunities available to farmers and other landowners through global and national nature and climate funds, which are currently valued at €13 billion euro but are forecast to reach €1 trillion euro by 2050. In Ireland alone, €3bn euro has been earmarked for nature restoration and climate mitigation projects.
Tom Popple, speaker and Hometree board member said: “Interestingly, Ireland has a wonderful opportunity because it’s already significantly diminished from the point of view of nature. Our forests are gone and the ones we have recreated since are made up of non-native trees. When we think about nature depletion, we think of it being exotic and distant but that’s because we’ve already destroyed our forests. This is what Brazil will look like in 100 years. We are the baseline; the worst-case scenario so everything we can do is just hugely positive. And if you can do it here, you can do it anywhere in the world. It’s such a wonderful opportunity to build a green economy, to export sustainability, to export climate impact.”
Dustin Benton, Policy Director at Green Alliance, who will also be speaking at the conference said: “We need unprecedented levels of change. We’ve done a lot of analytical work in the UK, the lessons of which are broadly applicable to Ireland, and we probably need to see roughly 2% to 2.5% of land change from its current type of farming into either very low-input agroecological, organic-style farming or new natural habitats, like wetlands, mixed forestry and rare habitats like heath. We think this change can happen in ways that improve rural incomes, particularly in uplands that have less economically attractive farmland. With diet change, we can also see the UK cutting its net food imports by a third, and doing that at the same time as meeting its climate neutrality objectives and restoring the natural world.”
The conference will also hear from the thought leader on climate finance, Cain Blythe, who has developed a pioneering mechanism to finance change through the world’s first nature fintech platform, CreditNature. He said “There is now a new breed of investor who recognises that an investment in the recovery of nature is not only profitable, it can also have multiple benefits for society such as sustainable food production, clean water, and sequestering of carbon. Impact funds are now forming in the UK and internationally that aim to help bridge the funding gap for nature and this offers significant opportunities and resources for landowners, communities, and indigenous people to continue to be custodians of the land.”
Changing Landscapes takes place next Thursday, May 30th in The Falls Hotel, Ennistymon, West Clare, with discounts available for land workers, students, and NGOs. The full programme is available at hometree.ie/changinglandscapes
