Ireland’s agri-food sector emissions remain high compared to other sectors, standing at 37.8% of the national total, and the sector faces unique challenges in balancing its climate targets against its future competitiveness.

Both processors and farmers in the sector are tasked with reducing their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), meeting national and EU sustainability targets, and transitioning or adapting to new market opportunities and an evolving regulatory environment.

While acknowledging the broader context of Ireland’s agricultural transition, this paper focuses on the processor-farmer relationship as a potential leverage point for implementing climate-aligned farming practices, and examines how food processors and manufacturers within Ireland’s agricultural supply chain are driving the sustainability transition at the farm level.

This paper provides the policy context for the discussion, to aid the reader in understanding how different policies and levers have been used and to inform the current context of the processor-farmer relationship, before examining the structural and economic factors that shape the relationship. Drawing on policy analysis and extensive stakeholder interviews, the paper investigates how Ireland’s dense agricultural policy legacy, evolving supply chain dynamics, and climate imperatives intersect.

This is the second publication  in the IIEA project Pathways: Ireland’s Agricultural Future. The IIEA is grateful to the European Climate Foundation for its support in establishing this project.