Farmers investing in climate-smart technologies should get the credit for reducing carbon emissions and not any other sector, according to the president of the Irish Farmers Association.
Tim Cullinan said that he is concerned that a reduction in emissions due to farmers investing in new technology - such as anaerobic digestion, solar panels, forestry and carbon farming - will be attributed to other key sectors.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme, Mr Cullinan said that this would be "totally wrong".
"We can't have a situation where farmers are going to invest massive amounts of money in new technologies and then they won't be getting the credit for it," he said.
He called on Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan to "rectify this".
Mr Cullinan said that farmers have been "consistently saying that we will work on 22% reduction in emissions".
He insisted that already "farmers are obviously doing a lot" by adopting new measures.
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He said that while yesterday's report published by the Environmental Protection Agency recorded an increase in emissions, there is always a lag time from when new measures are adopted and when the impact of these "filters through".
Earlier this week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the key sectors of agriculture, transport and enterprise will each have to come up with their ceilings and agree figures regarding cutting emissions.
In terms of agriculture targets, the Taoiseach said that farmers are "up for" the challenge of cutting emissions.
"The farmers are up for this. The farmers are quite progressive in Ireland in respect of change. They understand climate change as well. They can see it. We can all see it," Mr Martin said.
New farming technology is coming on stream all of the time, he said, adding that there are different ways of farming that cut emissions.
