 It's a pleasure to be here in the IEA as a forum for bringing different people together from different professions, different interest groups to try and get our teeth into a common subject area. What I'm talking to you about today is functional land management, which we are developing as, I don't set myself low targets, as a framework for sustainable climate, smart and productive agriculture. I'd like to acknowledge the many co-authors on this presentation that have contributed material and slides to this. Now, also like to thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to start this presentation with this slide. This is my favorite photograph, and it is a very famous photograph, it is so famous it has a name. I'm wondering if any of you know the name of this photograph. My Latvian colleagues are excluded from this quiz because they've seen it before. On one occasion, one person once knew the name of this photograph. Any takers here? It's called the pale blue dot, there she is. This is a photograph taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it flew out of the solar system past Neptune, past Pluto. It turned its camera back one last time at Earth, and this is the last photograph that it sent back to Earth. And it's a photograph of our planet, and it's one pixel, and it's called the pale blue dot. Why am I showing you this? Because this photograph always reminds me that at the end of the day, we live on a very small planet. At the same time, it's getting busy on the planet. So last year, last September, the United Nations revised its forecast for the growth of the population. No longer are we expected to stabilise of 9 billion people, we're now expected to continue growing up to 10, 11, possibly to 12 billion people by the year 2100. And that has led to the question in the media, are we running out of land? Or if you want to be more positive, I'm an optimist, how can we make the most of the land that we have? Can you people, can you see a Frank from there? How can we make the most of our land? Because we expect a lot from our land. We put a lot of demands, increasingly put demands on our land. In Ireland, we're all familiar with the demand we're planning to put on our land in terms of the food harvest strategy, Food Harvest 2020, where we want to increase milk production by 50% in response to the phasing out of the milk water. But that's only one of the demands we put on our land. To produce clean drinking water. We expect the soil to filter the water so that we can drink it. We expect our land, increasingly, to sequester carbon, as a sink to offset some of our greenhouse gas emissions. We expect our land to provide a home for biodiversity. And we expect our land to provide a home for our waste. Both from sewage sludge and in the form of from intensive enterprises, pigs, poultry, that normally don't have the land base to dispose of all their own sludge. All right, this is not Ireland. Can only be France. How can we meet all these demands at the same time? This is where we came up with the idea of soil functions. You can also call them land functions. I used them interchangeably. Where we looked at the EU thematic strategy on what our land can supply. What can our land do for us? Well, it can produce food and fiber and fuel. Our Dutch partners also wanted flowers in there, but it can regulate and purify water. It can sequester and regulate carbon. It can provide habitat and it can recycle on the trees. Keep these colors in mind. They will come back throughout the presentation. I've tried to make them intuitive. There's two more functions in the EU strategy. The soil is also an archaeological archive. And it is a building platform, but that is less related to agriculture. So I'm keeping those out. Now, we did an initial scoping study where we came to two overall conclusions. All our soils can provide all functions, can perform all the functions. But some parts of the landscape or of the land are better at some functions than others. Let me give you an example. This is a kind of exit. A typical mosaic of a landscape. Here we see some tiddish land. And what that does for us, it provides food. Big white box, okay? That's the main function of that land. It provides food. And there's also a little bit of the other things that can take big slurry. So also nice purple box. Here we have a coniferous forest in the background. Also provides stuff in the form of fiber, wood. But also has a very big role in carbon sequestration, big black box. On the horizon there we have blanket peat. Doesn't provide a lot of food fiber or a few forests. But it has a very important role for carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and provision of clean water. Okay, so each part of the landscape has a different balance of the soil functions. Example from Damagol, here's habitat, farmland, habitat. Typically the main function there is to provide biodiversity. And we have an extensive grassland which typically does everything at the same time. Now, that must be what we did in our first day. Where we related the supply of the different soil functions to land use. But then we realized very quickly, of course it also depends on soil type. Not just on how we use the land. These soil functions are typical for our well-drained soils. Now if we look at moderately poorly drained soils, we can see that the white box is getting smaller. We get less production from poorly drained soils. But in return we get more carbon sequestration. So we asked ourselves the question, can we create a matrix of land use by soil type? Where that can predict the supply of these soil functions for us. Now when we did that with IT Sligo, where for each of the soil functions we developed conceptual models. Based on a very extensive literature review that we could then employ to predict this supply. And this is the matrix that we come up with and this is just being accepted by the Journal of Environmental Science and Policy. Now, where do we go from there? We have now related the supply of our soil functions to land use. Which we have a land use map of and drainage. And as of last year we have a new drainage map of Ironman following the publication of the Irish soil information system. Formerly known as ISIS, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency. And this allows us now for the first time to map the supply of soil functions. You can call them ecosystem services if you like, soil-based ecosystem services. So here we have the supply of primary productivity. The capacity of soils to purify water, to sequester carbon, to provide a home for biodiversity. And to take nutrients in the form of sewage sludge or slugging. You see some regional differences appearing on the maps. But actually the real variation turns up when you zoom in. Okay, the variation is actually very fine grain. It can be field by field, because different fields can have different soils. You can have more than one soil in one field. You have different land uses in field by field. Very fine grain supply of soil functions. If all of this is a little bit theoretical for you, we're currently, thanks to funding from the Department of Agriculture, conducting the square project where we're actually trying to verify this matrix. Where we're measuring the five soil functions on four of the grassland sites around there. That's what the soils can do for us. Now let's look at what we expect from it. What the demands that are put on soils. We've framed that demand by the policies, the European policies for these soil functions. So we have the cap and the areas of natural constraints that frame the demand for production. It was the phasing out of the milk water as part of the reform cap that frames that demand for that increase in production. And then we have the environmental policies. The greening measures that refer to biodiversity and carbon. Nitrates deals with water and nutrients. We've got the water frame directive, the habitats and birds directive, the environmental schemes which typically deal with all the environmental functions. We've got the new climate and energy package and the sewage launch directive. Okay, that's how we framed our demand. Now if you map those, we've also made maps of how that demand translates spatially. And this is where it gets interesting. And I'm going to give you three examples here. On the primary productivity, this is the demand for increased productivity. What we've done here is we've got good evidence that the 50% more milk is going to come from existing dairy farms. We've very few new entrants or full-scale conversions for beef to dairy. This is simply a map of the density of dairy farms. Okay, so these are the areas where we expect an increase in what we demand from our land in terms of productivity. The good news is that most of the increase will take place in areas with a large carrying capacity. There are exceptions. West Limerick is an example of a very high dairy population that will require drainage in order to meet that demand. It's a wet area. I'll come back to that. I have an example of it. Very distant picture when we look at carbon, the demand for carbon sequestration. Because there is no difference regionally. Because it doesn't matter where you sequester the carbon. There is no regional demand for carbon sequestration, only a national demand. As a country, we will have to sequester carbon in order to meet our 2030 targets. But that doesn't mean we have to sequester it in a particular location. So that's why we see a unicolored map there. Third example is on nutrient cycling. There, the demand takes place at regional level. Because nutrient cycling is the disposal of sewage sludge and pig slurry and poultry. One of the main constraints there is the cost of transport. Okay, it can be moved, but it's very pricey to move it. So the demand for our land to recycle nutrients is highest around the intensive enterprises or the big cities. Now, that's the theory of supply and demand. How can that work in practice? This is where the issue of scale comes in. I want to contrast two of the functions. Our water quality standards we have to meet at local scale. Every field in Ireland and Europe has to comply with drinking water regulations. A depth has to be below the 50 milligrams per liter of nitrous. That means that we cannot offset between regions or between farms. The other extreme, as I said, carbon sequestration ambition is national. Now, that is implications, because that means that it may not be the best approach to expect every dairy farmer to plant trees on his or her land to offset their specific methane emissions from the cows. There's no reason why we couldn't optimize that and trade between regions. Now, that leaves us in trouble. Now, that leaves us in terms of managing this process with two angles. We've got farm management to manage the local processes and we've got an example of that and land management. We've got farm management. What does that look like? One example of how we can manage our soil. This is a graph of the fertility status of our soils in Ireland. We see a range of soils in a different pH bracket. Only about 20% of our soils is in optimum pH. Similar for phosphorus, only a quarter of our soils is in the optimum phosphorus condition. And the same for potassium. And if you put them all together, then only one out of 10 fields has optimum soil fertility. And optimum soil fertility, of course, being defined as fertility gives us enough productivity but it has a low risk environmentally. So there's huge gains to be made there at low cost. That's an example of farm management. The other example is land management. And the example I'm going to use to explain this is what we call integrated land management and that is the term that the department uses to specifically look at two functions, primary productivity and carbon sequestration. So now we're going to use the greenhouse gas debate as an example. We know that our land, back to our discussion over lunch, both sequesters carbon, locks carbon away but also mineralizes it. So we know that from our forestry, we're currently locking away 2.6 megatons per year in this country. That is projected to decline unless we start planting at a very high rate again because we're beginning to harvest our Kyoto forests. We know that our grasslands lock away a lot of carbon, you said that correctly, and it is actually projected to increase ever so slightly up to 2050. But if we count the good, if we want to count the good, we also have to count the bad and that is where the drained organic soils come in. Soils that were drained in the past, typically 60s, 70s, emit carbon because oxygen enters the high organic carbon soils and starts mineralizing and that can emit carbon dioxide for decades. Previously that was not a problem because the IPCC decided that those emissions were very low. But in the latest report, the IPCC has increased the emission by a factor of 20. So the emissions from drained organic grasslands, the IPCC says, are 20 times higher than we previously thought. And certainly this is coming into the equation because we're losing 2 megatons of carbon dioxide every year. On a national basis. That leaves us with a net thing. Now, what can we do in integrated land management? One of the things we can try and do is enhance sequestration. For example, through a newer forestation. And the department has just launched its new plan. As you said, planting rates are up for the first time. Now we have a long way to go. We need to go up a lot further in order to keep accumulating carbon, but it's a clear opportunity. The other thing we can do is try and plug our carbon leaks from the drained organic grasslands. And that we're doing currently a scoping study or a test study on that, funded by the Dairy Research Trust, Dairy Levin, and the Department of Agriculture. Where we look at these historically drained grasslands. Typically drained by the OPW. Okay, in the flood alleviation schemes. With Asoelma and Arlandjusma, we're trying to identify the extent of the hotspots of these drained organic grasslands. In the best case scenario, what we're hoping to find is that these hotspots are taking up 1% of the land. Which is also the land that is least productive. Okay? In that case, you would address that 1% of the land in the form of what is called rewetting. And suddenly we can actually, that threat of carbon emissions can turn into an opportunity. Because these emissions also took place in 1990. And now there's a big chunk of the emissions that we can do something about. That we can reduce. And then we can get credit for. The worst case scenario is that these hotspots are not concentrated. In small spots. But that they're very spread out. And that there is no relationship with productivity. And now we have to address a huge area of the land without clear benefits. Or with great difficulties. So that is what we're trying to assess at the moment. And we hope to have to report out before Christmas. And the department is looking for that in order to inform their position in the call. Make yourselves. Now the other side of the equation is of course can we prevent new carbon sources in response to new range of wet land. We know that drainage is a very good thing. Because it increases the traffic ability of the land. It means we can keep the cows out for longer. And we know that for every day that we keep the cows out longer we gain about 5 euros per hectare in gross margin. About 2.5 euros per cow per day out over us. Now that ranges from the extension of the grain raising season ranges from 20 to 50 days. Depending on where you are we can model that. So that could add up to I don't know 250 euros per hectare growth difference in your margin in response to drainage. So that's a good thing. Unfortunately drainage also induces mineralization and therefore carbon losses. And we can also model that now thanks to the work of Gary. And these losses range from 1 ton up to 2 tons a hectare per year. Big differences between sides. And now we can look at the ratio between our financial gains and our carbon losses by describing a carbon price to these carbon losses. The carbon benefit from the longer grazing season is minute compared to the carbon losses. And its carbon benefit from the long grazing season is very important at national level. But when you do the calculations on the individual fields it's behind the common. Okay how we're going to make this work is the final part. One common criticism of functional land management is that letting each area produce the soil function that it's best at that would work in China. Or that would work in a central command economy where the government has a role in telling farmers what to do. You're growing forest, you're growing beef, you're doing something else. I dispute that and I'm going to put an alternative to you. My take is that in the EU we have a very long history of incentivizing farmers to do one thing or another. And we have got many instruments and that's what I'd like to talk to you about. Let's look at the policy framework. Previously we talked about scale, the importance of scale, local, regional, and international. And if we first look at the objectives for primary production, food farming here, the objectives are very clear. At local level we want farm viability. At regional level we want to ensure regional development. At the national level we want to achieve some sort of food sovereignty. Now that's an interesting debate, the role of food sovereignty. But certainly at European level we'd like to be quite independent in our food supply. As highlighted by recent geopolitical events. On the water quality side we have a local level of drinking water quality. At regional level a surface water quality that's that the surface water quality depends on a whole catchment, not just on one farm. And of course at national level we have to identify a higher status set. Carbon, we've got two objectives. At farm level we know that we need carbon in our soil to protect soil quality. Not a huge issue in Ireland, we have a lot of carbon. Big issue in Europe, particularly the Mediterranean. At national level we want to sequester carbon to offset some of our emissions. Very different objective, but same soil function. By diversity it's different. It cooks across scales. At the local scale we may have to protect a little protected snail and carry. Very small scale. On the other side we have the habitats at national scale, the fresh water pro-muscle, which all plays out at national scale. So that's cross cut. And finally on the nutrient management side we have our manure management of intensive enterprises and a regional level of sewage sludge. Sewage sludge can travel a little bit further. We've seen our two pathways, our farm management and our land use management. And now let's have a look at the instruments that are available already to us to manage this process. So we have three types of instruments. Market, mandatory and voluntary. Our main market instrument is the value chain. We encourage production through the market, through money. But on the market we also see the emergence of quality assurance schemes, voluntary by processes. Voluntary adopted by processes which make it mandatory for the primary producers. And at national level we have the marketing initiative of that in the form of origin green. Okay, and that tries to address some of the other functions, water quality, carbon, biodiversity. The mandatory policy instruments will have the single farm payment which is linked to the greening measures, which is linked to the good aggregate environmental condition of sorts. Okay, so that aims to maintain the carbon, they aim to increase biodiversity, and the single farm payment is meant to maintain the flow of food. We also have the nitrates directive, and the requirement to conduct environmental impact assessment when we do significant works like drainage or forestry. And that has a focus on biodiversity. On the voluntary side we have agri-environmental schemes that address many of the objectives. And at national level we have mandatory designation of the 200,000 sites, and voluntary the delineation of the areas of natural constraint to compensate farmers that find themselves in less reductive circumstances. We've got forestation schemes, came that sequestering carbon, a voluntary scheme at national level. And finally we've got river basin districts, management plans, which are one of the few plans that operate at regional level rather than local, national. And finally we see the emergence of manure trading as a market driven incentive to manage delusions in manure. Now what does this tell us? What this tells us is that we already have 14 instruments in the EU to manage the different objectives, the five objectives, the five things we expect from our land. Okay, let's analyze this graph. First thing that we see is nearly a neat objective, and this looks a bit messy. Okay, there's no one-to-one alignment between instruments and objectives. But don't be mistaken, that's not a bad thing, because we don't want a different instrument for each policy objective. In fact, it's a good thing. We want to see these cross-cutting instruments that address more than one objective. The second thing we see is we've already got enough instruments. We don't need new instruments to manage our land. We already have 14 of them. We also see some alignment between instruments, where one is a condition of another, for example the single farm payment in relation to the greening, but there's also room for more alignment. There's still a few boxes there that only have one or two columns. The main question that I would like to ask is very few, if any, of these instruments account for differences in soil time or land changes. A forestation being, if I can use it as one example, there's nothing stopping me, or I get, if I plant forests on client agricultural land, I get the same grant as I would when I plant it on a type of land where I would compete less with food production. There's no customer section. And it's their room to address that. Now, that is a question for Ireland, but also a question for Europe, where Europe got interested. And this is a question we're trying to address in our Horizon 2020 project. It's called landmark, land management, assessment, research, knowledge base, because ultimately these questions and these five things that we demand from our land, it's not an Irish thing. It's all of Europe, also in Brazil, also plays in countries like China, who are partners in our consortium. It's a four and a half year project aimed at informing the land use directive that you'd be hoping to publish by the year 2020. If you're interested, follow us on that project in 2020. And at that, I will park it and leave it open to discussion. Thank you for your time.