Beef Webinar Series 2021: Solutions to deliver sustainable beef production
September 13, 2021
College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE), Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC), Northern Ireland Meat Export Association (NIMEA), National Beef Association (NBA) and Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) have joined forces to deliver a series of beef webinars with a focus on sustainable beef farming for the future.
The cross cutting themes that the webinars address include production efficiency, environmental sustainability, resilience and supply chain. The four webinars are specifically tailored for farmers and will focus on solutions that can be employed to further increase the sustainability of the beef industry in Northern Ireland. Speakers include farmers, industry representatives, researchers and advisers, and the webinars will provide important messages for all involved in the local beef industry.
Webinar 3 – Carbon – an opportunity and a challenge
The third instalment in the series takes place on Thursday 30th September online at 8:00pm.
The webinar will be chaired by Aileen Lawson, Senior Policy Officer with UFU
Our first speaker on the evening will be Dr. Elizabeth Magowan, Director of Sustainable Agri-Food Sciences at AFBI who will provide a review of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and the key areas which beef farmers should focus on to both reduce emissions and capture carbon.
We will of course have farmer input in the form of a short film recorded on the farm of Bill Harpur who has embraced the environmental outlook on his suckler beef farm in Portrush. Bill and his CAFRE Agri-Environment Adviser Sinead Mathers will talk through the technologies and measures in place on the farm which not only deliver results from a production efficiency perspective but that also deliver environmental gains. They will talk particularly about the benefits of completing a carbon benchmark which Bill availed of through membership of an Environmental Business Development Group.
Our final speaker will be CAFRE Agri-Environment Adviser in Fermanagh, Phelim Connolly. Phelim will run through some of the technologies and changes that have been proven over the years to improve profitability on beef farms and highlight how their continued and further implementation can deliver environmental and further profitability benefits.
An excellent line up of speakers who will come together after the talks and presentations to form the panel for a live question and answer session. Joining them at this point will be Aleathea Brown, Senior Technologist at CAFRE with responsibility for carbon technologies.
This topic is sure to stimulate wide discussion and interest on the night so is one not to be missed by beef farmers and industry representatives alike.
You must register for the event in advance and this can be done using this link.