“Farmers can learn to find new income streams while fighting pollution”. The director of the Peatlands for Prosperity programme Douglas McMillan explains how paludiculture is turning high-emission peats into an economic opportunity.
“Paludiculture” is not an easy word. In a magic country like Ireland, a land of shamrocks and leprechauns, it can become a magic word for farmers looking to improve their lives, agriculture, and the environment.
It is the goal of the Peatlands for Prosperity project, which aims to turn polluting dry peatlands in the Midlands into flourishing farms by adding one magical ingredient: water. That is what “paludiculture” stands for.
This project, funded through the EU Just Transition Fund, is led by Green Restoration Ireland, a cooperative society whose mission is “to reverse the ecological degradation of the Irish landscape and the erosion of rural communities”, all while supporting rural development.
Douglas McMillan, its general manager, explains what they are doing in the Midlands: “We have two farms established, the first paludiculture trials on farms in Ireland, and we're trialling the different crops that will grow well in wet peat. Traditionally, farmers would drain the peat and grow things. That creates all the environmental problems, so we need to see what can grow on wet peats. So we've set up these two farms, and we're growing a range of things, herbs, vegetables, fruits, materials for horticulture, for building, and so on. And we bring other peatland farmers here, and we show them all the different things that they can grow.”
This way, farmers can learn to find new income streams while also fighting pollution. Crucially, the fight against pollution itself becomes a direct source of income. Once they have rewetted the peatlands, they can sell carbon credits: “We survey the peatlands for the farmers, and the Peatland Code gives us indications of the emissions you expect from those areas. For example, predicted emissions from here, where we are standing right now, when it's dry, is 12 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year, so of course, when it's wet, that's 11 to 12 tonnes avoided. If, let’s say, it's a hundred euros a tonne of CO2, that's an indicative income stream for that type of habitat.”
The technical challenge is that it's never been done before, adds McMillan: “It's all learning, so we have to try it. It's unique. A lot of this work has been done in the UK and Europe, but it's focused on specific plants. But here we wanted to give the farmers the options. So we're trialling a whole range of things, up to 20 different varieties of plants and trees here. Some plants are more difficult than others.”