Principles for Developing Carbon Farming in Ireland

Under the new Programme for Government and in the Climate Action Plan 2025, DAFM is committed to developing a National Carbon Farming Framework. Carbon farming provides a potential opportunity for our farmers/land managers to derive a new income stream for their farm.

The overall objective is to support and enable the adoption and scaling of activities within agricultures primary production systems that will enable Ireland to achieve its climate, biodiversity and water quality targets. The draft key principles for developing carbon farming sets out eleven key principles, all of which are critical to delivering a successful Carbon Farming framework.

The Key Principles, set out fundamental principles for high-quality certificates that create real, verifiable climate impact, based on the latest science and best practice. These Principles include biodiversity and water quality to reflect the Irish context. This will contribute to an approach needed to develop carbon farming initiatives.

The Key Principles document also identifies key infrastructural needs have been identified to enable a structured approach to the development of initiatives while providing confidence to all stakeholders.

Setting out key guidance can also instil confidence in the development of this important sector and in turn potentially attract additional investment into the agri-food sector and provide additional financial rewards for primary producers (farmers, landowners and foresters) for the ecosystem services that they provide.

The purpose of this consultation is to get further stakeholder feedback on these Key Principles to support the successful development of Carbon Farming in Ireland.

See link to: Carbon Farming Framework for Ireland

Submissions should be sent by email to carbonfarming@agriculture.gov.ie by 5pm on Sunday, 30 November 2025, or by post to: