Ireland could supply all its energy requirements from fuel crops if all energy supplies to the country were cut off, the Teagasc National Tillage Conference was told yesterday.
Teagasc researcher Mr Bernard Rice told the conference it was time Ireland made a serious attempt to develop a number of bio-fuel industries.
Apart from the problems in cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions and the need to improve our fuel supply security, a start should be made on developing the systems which would be needed in the future.
"In view of the problems currently facing both farming and the national economy at the moment, a more serious look at the potential of fuel crops is warranted," he said. "Unlike other neighbouring countries, Irish land could supply a significant part of our energy needs. At the extreme, the total farmed area could produce our total national energy requirement."
Mr Rice added that a 10 per cent substitution of our fossil fuel energy could be achieved with only a slight decrease in arable and livestock enterprises. The most likely energy substitute products would be rape-seed oil as a diesel substitute, ethanol from beet as a petrol substitute and a large range of crops for combustion to produce heat and electricity.
A major step to allow a beginning to be made would be a Government reduction or remission of road excise on bio-fuels and an increased price for electricity being produced from biomass.
The conference heard that cereal planting levels have been cut back by at least 40 per cent this year because of poor planting last October and November. Farmers were told that winter crops could still be planted until February 20th and they were urged to consider their opportunities.
Dr Jimmy Burke, the Teagasc tillage specialist, said he expected that if there were late winter plantings and the weather held well for spring planting, a million acres could be planted again this year but it would be difficult to predict if yields would reach the two million tonnes normally achieved.
A British economist, Dr Gerald Mason of the Home Grown Cereals Authority, said the size of the US grain maize crop and weather patterns in Canada would have a large influence on grain prices in 2003.
World plantings of wheat were lower than expected which would indicate that output targets would not be met this year. He advised farmers that they could have a good tillage year if they planted malting barley.
Dr Dermot Forristal of Teagasc, Oak Park, Carlow, urged farmers to move to larger tyres for their heavy machinery. He said international research had shown that in some cases, compacting could cause a drop of up to 20 per cent in cereal yields and as much as 50 per cent in maize crops.