AQW 20308/17-22


Mr John Blair
Alliance Party
South Antrim


Tabled Date: 11/06/2021
Answered On Date: 25/06/2021
Priority Written: No


Question:
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for a breakdown of funding allocated to support research on methods to reduce emissions in farming.


Answer:
My Department has made very significant investments in research to reduce emissions in farming over a number of years. Since 2015 onwards, DAERA has committed £20.9 million to fund or co-fund 26 research projects.
A list of these research project titles and allocated funding is provided at Annex 1.
Annex 1: List of research projects relating to emissions in farming funded by DAERA
Programme
Project Title
Year of Funding*
DAERA Funding Allocation
DAERA Evidence and Innovation Programme
New strategies for the abatement of odours and ammonia from animal housing.
2015
£63,069.31
Evaluation of the potential for changing land use practices to encourage soil and grass carbon sequestration.
2015
£816,361.87
Land Use Change Modelling: Incorporation of the Wider Social Benefits of Forestry.
2016
£302,456
An evaluation of non-market values of ecosystem services in Northern Ireland.
2016
£258,734
Management of manure nutrients for sustainable grass-based dairy production in Northern Ireland.
2016
£524,027
Monitoring, modelling and mitigation of N and P losses from land to water under derogated and non-derogated conditions in the Colebrooke and Upper Bann Catchments.
2016
£1,286,832
Factors affecting the ecological recovery of Northern Ireland Freshwaters.
2017
£628,782
Review of Northern Ireland’s agricultural ammonia emissions, atmospheric ammonia deposition monitoring and modelling, and assessment of potential ammonia mitigation measures.
2017
£989,255
Evaluation of ammonia and greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock production sector in Northern Ireland.
2017
£2,683,493
Targeted agri-environmental landscape interventions exploiting SRC willow to mitigate the negative effects of sustainable intensification on water quality, energy use and the land-use nexus.
2017
£278,600
Decision support systems to support the management of nutrient on Northern Irish farms.
2017
£242,733
Mechanical processing of farm slurries and anaerobic digestate to facilitate nutrient redistribution through export of separated solids.
2018
£496,479
Monitoring and modelling of nutrient losses to water in agricultural catchments to evaluate the effectiveness of the Nutrients Action Programme (NAP) and the Environmental Farming Scheme (EFS).
2018
£4,027,047
Water Quality Prediction Models Impact DAERA Schemes (WQPMIDS).
2018
£776,297.95
Effects of reseeding and liming on soil carbon stocks under intensively managed grassland in Northern Ireland.
2018
£889,017.69
Reducing nitrogen excretion from dairy cows through dietary manipulation.
2019
£3,222,720
Treatments to Reduce Ammonia Emissions from Livestock Slurry Storage in Northern Ireland.
2019
£874,505
Assessing the ammonia emission abatement potential of Low Emission Slurry Spreading technologies and treated slurries for Northern Ireland.
2019
£1,018,129
Mitigation strategies to reduce ammonia emissions from poultry production systems.
2019
£559,627
DAERA Postgraduate Studentship Scheme (2015-19)
Effects of long-term nutrient fertilization and land use change on the carbon sequestration potential of agricultural grasslands. 
2015
£60,000
Effects of land use practices on C sequestration and their implications for tackling GHG emissions for the agri-food sector in Northern Ireland. 
2015
£60,000
Life cycle environmental and economic impact assessment of pollution mitigation strategies for Northern Ireland dairy farming systems. 
2021
£65,000
DAERA / DAFM funded
Manipulation and Integration of Nitrogen Emissions – to convert excess soil nitrogen to environmentally benign N2.
2015
£152,005
Irish Land Use Emission and sequestration Support Tool.
2015
£107,309
Development and validation of novel technologies to reduce methane emissions from pasture based Irish agricultural systems.
2019
£235,497.72
Abating Ammonia in Agriculture.
2019
£373,543.40
*Whilst this is the year that the project was commissioned, the actual spend will be split over a period of several subsequent years.