Tackling agricultural methane emissions in Ireland
The challenge
Agriculture accounts for approximately 38% of Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it the country’s largest emitting sector. Ireland has a legally binding target to reduce agricultural emissions by 25% by 2030, yet progress to date remains limited, with emissions only 4.5% below the 2018 baseline. More than 70% of agricultural emissions come from methane, including 62% from enteric methane (burps!) and 12% from manure management.
While much attention has focused on enteric methane from cattle, emissions from stored manure also represent a significant and under-addressed challenge. Reducing these emissions is an important part of Ireland’s pathway towards meeting its climate targets, but adoption of mitigation technologies remains constrained by cost, practicality, verification requirements and the need for clear evidence of effectiveness under real farm conditions.
The intervention
Thanks to support from the Systemic Climate Action Collaborative, Climate KIC worked with partners to test and deploy manure methane reduction technology on nine dairy farms in West Cork during the 2025/26 winter housing period.
A key partner was Carbery Co-op, whose relationships with local farmers were essential in enabling on-farm deployment and testing across its monitor farm network. Climate KIC orchestrated the pilot, bringing together farmers, the co-op, the technology provider and public bodies, aligning their roles and working on the wider barriers to scale, from verification to emissions accounting, alongside testing the technology in real-world conditions.
The project focused on GlasPort Bio’s GasAbate technology, which was selected following earlier trials and installed across nine participating farms. Alongside technology deployment, partners worked to understand the enabling conditions needed for wider adoption, including integration into national emissions accounting systems, farm sustainability programmes and developing carbon farming frameworks. These systemic barriers are often as important as technological performance in determining whether innovations can scale.
The change
The pilot demonstrated both immediate emissions reductions and a credible pathway to scale. Across the nine participating farms, GasAbate achieved an average methane abatement rate of 72% in monitored slurry stores, resulting in a total reduction of 218 tonnes CO₂e by the end of May 2026. This provides strong evidence that manure methane emissions can be reduced substantially under commercial farm conditions.
Kerry Desmond, one of the dairy farmers participating in the pilot, explained: “Anything that we can do here on the farm that puts us in the right direction, that cares for the land better and the environment that we live in, and also makes our lives easier, it’s a good step to be taken.” The experience of the pilot demonstrated that farmers are willing to adopt new approaches when solutions are practical and aligned with the realities of farm management.
Beyond the direct emissions impact, the project generated valuable implementation learning. Through experience gained during the rollout, GlasPort Bio redesigned its delivery model, replacing a more capital-intensive automated system with a manual dosing approach. The revised model lowers installation costs, improves operational practicality and creates opportunities for local employment, helping address key barriers to adoption identified during the pilot.
The project has also built momentum for broader deployment. Following the success of the initial rollout, with support from project partners, Carbery and GlasPort Bio, the manual dosing system is being rolled out to an additional 18 farms in West Cork during 2026, creating an important next step towards commercial scaling.
At the system level, the initiative has helped establish a collective industry dialogue around how methane-reduction technologies can be recognised and supported. Through Climate KIC’s industry roundtables and engagement with organisations including EPA, Teagasc and Bord Bia, partners are working to improve pathways for technology verification, inclusion in farm decision-support tools such as AgNav, integration into sustainability assurance systems, and eventual reflection in national greenhouse gas inventories. The innovation workstream has resulted in a co-designed budget submission to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in 2026. The submission includes development of national ‘demonstration infrastructure’ based on the model mused in this project. It also includes a request for subsidised roll out of technologies in the short term, but with industry co-funding, as well as a set of systemic enablers, including taxation measures, that need to be addressed.
Why it matters
Ireland will not achieve its agricultural emissions reduction targets without addressing methane emissions from multiple sources. Demonstrating practical, measurable and scalable mitigation options is therefore critical for farmers, cooperatives, supply-chain actors and policymakers alike.
The project also challenged assumptions about farmers’ readiness to act. Stewart Gee, project lead at Climate KIC, observed: “Farmers are ready and willing to make the transition to a more sustainable future, but what they need is support and the conditions around them to drive that forward.” The pilot showed that the barriers to adoption are often less about willingness and more about affordability, verification, incentives and implementation support.
The learning generated through the collaboration has already influenced how the technology is delivered and how partners are approaching future deployment. Reflecting on the project, GlasPort Bio CEO Justin McCarthy noted: “These advancements have significantly lowered the barrier to entry for farmers and co-ops, making GasAbate a more accessible, cost-effective and scalable methane-mitigation solution. We believe the outcomes of this project place us on a strong trajectory for rapid expansion across Ireland and into broader European markets.” He added that the company is now exploring further rollout opportunities within Carbery and across other dairy and beef supply chains, highlighting how the pilot has strengthened the case for wider adoption.