O'Connor, SeanEhimen, EhiazePillai, Suresh C.Power, NiamhLyons, Gary A.Bartlett, John2021-05-102021-05-102021-01-27O’Connor, S., Ehimen, E., Pillai, S. C., Power, N., Lyons, G. A. and Bartlett, J. (2021) ‘An Investigation of the Potential Adoption of Anaerobic Digestion for Energy Production in Irish Farms’, Environments. MDPI AG, 8(2), p. 8. doi: 10.3390/environments8020008.2076-3298https://doi.org/10.3390/environments8020008Published online: Accepted - 20 January 2021; Published online - 27 January 2021Anaerobic digestion (AD) has been recognised as an effective means of simultaneously producing energy while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Despite having a large agriculture sector, Ireland has experienced little uptake of the technology, ranking 20th within the EU-28. It is, therefore, necessary to understand the general opinions, willingness to adopt, and perceived obstacles of potential adopters of the technology. As likely primary users of this technology, a survey of Irish cattle farmers was conducted to assess the potential of on-farm AD for energy production in Ireland. The study seeks to understand farmers’ motivations, perceived barriers, and preferred business model. The study found that approximately 41% of the 91 respondents were interested in installing AD on their farming enterprise within the next five years. These Likely Adopters tended to have a higher level of education attainment, and together, currently hold 4379 cattle, potentially providing 37,122 t year−1 of wastes as feedstock, resulting in a potential CO2 reduction of 800.65 t CO2-eq. year−1. Moreover, the results indicated that the primary consideration preventing the implementation of AD is a lack of information regarding the technology and high investment costs. Of the Likely Adopters and Possible Adopters, a self-owned and operated plant was the preferred ownership structure, while 58% expressed an interest in joining a co-operative scheme. The findings generated provide valuable insights into the willingness of farmers to implement AD and guidance for its potential widespread adoption.enCopyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).anaerobic digestionfarm-scaledecentralisedbiogas productionArticle