Citizens’ Assembly recommends agriculture greenhouse gas tax

"The Citizens’ Assembly has recommended there should be a tax on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, among a number of other suggested measures to tackle climate change. The Assembly had been considering the topic, ‘How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change’. Its recommendations will now form the basis of a report for submission to the Houses of the Oireachtas." .... Continue reading at the Irish Farmers Monthly *Extracted from The Irish Farmers ...
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Wet conditions delayed the sowing of winter cereals

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Ireland, as well as parts of the UK, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, all had delays sowing winter cereals due to the wet conditions. For a more in-depth analysis see the October MARS Bulletin. MARS, which monitor agricultural resources in Europe on behalf of the European Commission, publish free crop monitoring summaries every month. They can be accessed from the MARS website. Figure extracted from the MARS Crop monitoring bulletin - October 2017  
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Tom Keane AGMET Lecture Series

Launch of the Tom Keane Lecture Series A full house were in attendance at the launch of the Tom Keane AGMET Lecture Series. An event jointly organised by the AGMET Group, The Irish Meteorological Society (IMS) and our friends at the National Botanic Gardens. The ultimate aim is to build up an archive of high profile speakers in the area of agriculture and meteorology, to continue Tom’s legacy of educating and developing the agrometeorology community in Ireland. The evening started with an ex...
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Bronze Medal Winner

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Congratulations to the winner of the AGMET Austin Bourke Bronze medal, Pooja Sharma. The Austin Bourke Bronze Medal is presented for a recent significant contribution to Irish agrometeorology, applied environmental meteorology, biometeorology or a related discipline. From the nominations received an award committee deemed Pooja’s work in the area “System modelling and life cycle assessment of dairy farms on heavy wet soils” most deserving of the award. Pooja is a PhD student at the School of ...
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Gerald Fleming to present first Tom Keane Lecture

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The Inaugural Tom Keane AGMET Lecture - Tuesday 5th Sept 2017, Glasnevin, Dublin The Inaugural Tom Keane Lecture will be given by Met Éireann’s Head of Forecast Division, Gerald Fleming, with a talk entitled ‘A half-century of weather forecasting in Ireland’ This talk will consider how weather forecasting has evolved since the early days of AGMET – from charts that were plotted and analysed by hand, through the explosion of data from weather satellites, the automation of surface weather ...
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The Inaugural Tom Keane AGMET Lecture

The Tom Keane AGMET Lecture Series This free event, organised jointly by the AGMET Group and the Irish Meteorological Society, is to launch the Tom Keane AGMET Lecture Series. Tom, who sadly passed away last year, was a founder of the AGMET Group in 1984. The ongoing Tom Keane lecture series is an attempt to commemorate Tom’s influence on Irish agrometeorology and his passion for education. The Inaugural Tom Keane Lecture will be given by Met Éireann’s Head of Forecast Division, Gerald Flemi...
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Call for nominations – Austin Bourke Bronze Medal

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The Irish Joint Working Group on Applied Agricultural Meteorology (AGMET) is pleased to invite nominations for the award of The Austin Bourke Bronze Medal for a recent significant contribution to agrometeorology, applied environmental meteorology, biometeorology or a related discipline. Closing date for nominations is 12:00pm, Friday 4th August 2017. Download the application details. Eligibility Scientists based in Ireland, or working on issues specific to Ireland, are eligible. The awa...
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WMO and FAO strengthen cooperation on climate change, drought

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' The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization have signed a memorandum of understanding to deepen cooperation to respond to climate variability and climate change, which, according to the agreement, "represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies, natural ecosystems and food security. ' * Source WMO news ' Through their strengthened partnership, the two organizations will work on strengthening agro-meteorological servi...
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Positive outlook for winter crops

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The European Commission MARS (Monitoring Agricultural ResourceS) programme publish regular bulletins commenting on observed and forecast crop growth. In the May 2017 publication it suggests that there is a positive outlook for winter crops across Ireland and the UK. “Winter crops are generally faring well, despite a pronounced rain deficit. Overall the yield outlook is positive, but more rain is needed to sustain high yield potentials.” See the full publication at JRC MARS Bulletin Vol....
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Nematodirus Risk Advisory 2017

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The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine advises farmers in relation to the predicted risk of infection in livestock based on the advice received from the Nematodirus Advisory Group. Source: DAFM - Press Release, April 2017 About the disease "Nematodirosis is a severe disease of lambs six to twelve weeks of age, which become infected through ingesting large numbers of infective larvae present on contaminated pasture. The life cycle of Nematodirus battus is unlike that of other...
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