Cooperative approach to farm-level emissions reduction

Anthropogenic climate change, driven by rising greenhouse gases like CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide, threatens human societies and at least one million other species. In Ireland’s dairy sector, farm-level activities contribute around 80% of total emissions. The COOPIID project investigates cooperative approaches to reduce these emissions through scalable practices such as carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, reductions in methane and nitrous oxide emissions, habitat restoration, and afforestation. When implemented collectively by farmer co-operatives, these evidence-based solutions—such as feed additives and multi-species grasslands—can significantly lower emissions while enhancing carbon sequestration, benefiting farms, families, communities, and landscapes. Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.