Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with special responsibility for research and innovation, Martin Heydon and the New Zealand Minister for Agriculture, Damien O’Connor made the announcement following a bilateral meeting held during the Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate Summit in Washington DC.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries launched the first joint call in 2022, following the signing of a Memorandum of Arrangement between both organisations in May 2022. This provided for the establishment a three-year pilot joint research initiative over the period 2022 to 2024 in recognition of the strong existing research connections and the common challenges facing the agri-food sectors in both Ireland and New Zealand. Over €7m in joint funding was awarded to four research projects in the 2022 call.
The 2023 research call will aim to investigate:
- Land management on organic agricultural soils to support the development of greenhouse gas mitigation and carbon sequestration;
- Refinement of agricultural GHG emissions inventories through the development of emission factors for methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide;
- Identification and development of technologies for the mitigation of greenhouse gases from ruminant systems; and
- Digitalisation and data to support climate-related action and management practices in agriculture.