The Irish Farmers Association say the science being used to draft the government's new Climate Bill is outdated, and could disproportionately penalise Irish agriculture.
Demonstrations were organised across the country by the IFA yesterday, including in Cork city last night - with some estimates putting the crowd at over 3,000 attendees.
The farmers are are calling for talks with the Government to agreed a plan on proposed changes to the industry.
Munster Chairman of the Irish Farmers Association, Harold Kingston, told RedFM News that the figures used by the government to calculate the impact of Irish agriculture on the environment are 30 year out of date, and more accurate data is now available:
"Agriculture is extremely science based. Farmers are big into actually using the latest science, and in some cases policy doesn't keep up with it, and in other cases policy goes ahead of it. And that's actually our worry on this one. The Teagasc Sign-Post Farms are set up there recently now, looking at measuring properly what the emissions are from farms and measuring properly what we can sequester into our soils, because we're only working on book values since 1990. So we don't know exactly where we stand, and meanwhile government is talking about putting in limits and so on, based on 1990 figures that were worked out on a spreadsheet. It doesn't make sense."
