Aine Anderson, PhD student

What is your research about? 

I map and model slurry management scenarios across Northern Ireland using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Excess slurry creates pollution in rivers and soils, due to the levels of nitrogen or phosphorus. The idea would be to redistribute excess slurry from certain farms in NI and at the same time use it to create bio-gas.

Not only is that creating a renewable energy, it’s also concentrating nutrients from a before ‘waste’ product and creating a more circular economy. It would also be reducing the risk of runoff and pollution. The stage where bio-gas will feed into the national grid is fast approaching – I’m hoping this will be in place by the end of 2022. 

Where do you ‘sit’ within Queen’s and the Queen’s-AFBI Alliance? 

I am a Queen’s PGR student, supervised by Professor David Rooney from School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering and Professor  Jennifer McKinley, from the School of Natural and Built Environment. I’m also co-supervised by Dr Donnacha Doody from AFBI, so that’s where the Queen’s-AFBI Alliance comes in. My funding is from the Department for the Economy (DfE) in NI as it’s tied in with the creation of renewable energy. 

I draw on really important, real-time data-sets from AFBI and from the Department for Agriculture, the Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in NI, eg. river data and farm-census data, which is crucial for the work that I’m doing. So, it really does span the fundamental research at the Queen’s end, and then the more applied agricultural science at the AFBI and DAERA end. 

I also feed into a Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy (CASE) project, which is about the decarbonisation of heat and nutrient management in NI – that project is a collaboration between Queen’s and AFBI, as well as industry stakeholders such as Phoenix Gas. 

So, it’s a holistic approach and, from my point of view, the Queen’s-AFBI Alliance is enormously helpful as it allows me to avail of data and resources from a number of sources that can help me fit together all the pieces of the jigsaw into a more complete and coherent picture. 

Did you always want to research in this area? 

I never thought I would have been researching agriculture! My primary degree is in (physical) Geography, from the University of Edinburgh. I then worked for a few years, for Scottish Power and later, for Lancaster University and also for AFBI. In these roles, I was involved in nutrient management, water-pollution mitigations and phosphorous management. I guess that work took me in the direction of trying to make energy more sustainable, cleaner and greener, while at the same time helping to deal with agricultural issues.

After four years of working across these different roles, I started a PhD and am now around half way through it. Although I enjoyed the private sector and industry, I love being back in a research environment. 

If the technology is already there for more renewable energies, why aren’t we using them today? 

In many ways, it’s a question of the technology catching up with the research. In some places, eg. Scandinavia or the Netherlands, they are much more developed in this regard, but we are managing to narrow the gap. In some senses, it’s political will and a need for more joined-up thinking in terms of policy – eg. policy can fall between different government departments and agencies.  

But Cop26 last November definitely provided an important catalyst in terms of a growing public interest and a growing political will to invest in the area of renewables and more sustainable agriculture. If NI agriculture really is to achieve Net Zero, we need to quickly find new ways of doing things. It’s not just about decarbonising agriculture but also decarbonising heat and energy.  

As far as I’m concerned, using excess slurry to create bio-methane is a no-brainer and I’m hoping that my research will be part of the evidence base that will allow people in government to follow through with the policy decisions. 

Do you think it’s possible for NI agriculture to reach Net Zero by 2050?  

It will take a lot of joined-up thinking, partnership and effort. Personally, I don’t think it’s a case of necessarily making farms less intensive – because that burden would then just be moved somewhere else. We have a growing global population and people need to eat. NI also exports a lot of food – that is a success story for our economy and many people's livelihoods depend on it. I think it’s important to work with those realities. 

In my view, it’s more about balancing farm emissions with much more sustainable practices, and nutrient management – eg. if you process slurry, making it more nutrient-dense, this can help reduce pollution and emissions. Using surplus manure to create bio-gas is another example of a more sustainable way to do things. 

Anaerobic digestion is already used here in NI, producing electricity from agricultural residues that feeds into the national grid. Now we are working on doing the same for gas. Bio-methane has so much potential as a renewable energy source in NI, which we need to understand more for future planning and policy.