Meeting of the Council of the Global Research Alliance for Agricultural Greenhouse Gases opens in Dublin for first time

The meeting of the Council of the Global Research Alliance for Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) opened today, Tuesday 3 June 2025, at Dublin Castle. The GRA brings together climate scientists from across the world to enhance collaboration and progress climate research in agriculture. Ireland, through the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, officially assumed the chair of the GRA from 1 January 2025, for a period of eighteen months. This is the first time that Ireland has chaired the GRA since joining in 2009.

Established in 2009, the GRA aims to provide a framework for voluntary action to increase international cooperation and investment in research activities for mitigating agricultural greenhouse gases and improving carbon sequestration, as well as improving the measurement of emissions in different agricultural systems. The GRA also helps scientists to gain expertise in mitigation through developing new partnerships and exchanges.

A total of 68 countries and 29 partners are now members. The council meeting in Dublin sees delegates from a large number of these countries and partners in attendance. Over the course of the two-day meeting, they will consider among other things, a new Strategic Plan to 2030, as well as hearing updates from the activities of the four research groups – livestock, croplands, paddy rice, and integrative cross cutting areas. In addition, they will consider proposals for new Flagship projects in areas such as the biological nitrification inhibition of pasture swards to reduce nitrous oxide emissions, and the outcomes of completed flagship projects such as the “Feed Additives” project that has developed practical tools, protocols and guidelines for the testing and implementation of feed additives.

The council meeting will be chaired by officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Many of the delegates will attend the ‘Agriculture and Climate Change: Science into Action’ conference also taking place in Dublin Castle on Thursday 5 June. In addition, they will visit the Teagasc Grange Research Centre and a Teagasc Signpost Farm on Friday 6 June, to see first-hand the research taking place on agricultural greenhouse gases in Ireland and how the outputs of this research are being implemented on an Irish farm.

• for more information on the GRA, see Global Research Alliance
• along with Ireland as the chair, the GRA Special Representative, who is the Ambassador for the GRA, is Dr Harry Clark, Chief Scientist of the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre
• Professor Tommy Boland, UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science, is a co-chair of the Livestock Research Group (one of four research groups) of the GRA

An example of work conducted by the GRA is the development of technical guidelines on feed additives for methane mitigation which were published as a Journal of Dairy Science special issue in December 2024. This project was led by the Livestock Research Group. The full open access issue can be found here: Feed additives for methane mitigation: Introduction—Special issue on technical guidelines to develop feed additives to reduce enteric methane - Journal of Dairy Science.