A new vet medicines and fertilisers bill will not disrupt cross-border trade and farmers will be “free to purchase fertiliser from outside of the state,” the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has said.
However, Minister McConalogue has also warned that there will be an “additional requirement” for farmers who do buy fertiliser product in Northern Ireland.
“Such transactions are imports and farmers buying from the north of Ireland, as an example, will have to register as a fertiliser economic operator and submit information on these imports to the National Fertiliser Database,” the minister has outlined.
Minister McConalogue also highlighted that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is “acutely aware” of concerns that this could place “additional administrative” burdens on farmers merchants.
But he added: “I believe that the system, as it has been designed and developed, is as easy and simple as it is possible to do.
“Most, if not all farmers, will only need to register once on my department’s online portal agfood.ie and then interact with the system once a year to declare any stocks on their farm.
“The submission of fertiliser sales data to the National Fertiliser Database will, in the main, be done by co-ops and merchants.”
Minister McConalogue discussed the committee stage of the Veterinary Medicinal Products, Medicated Feed and Fertiliser Regulations Bill 2023 at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine last night (Wednesday, March 29).
He also dealt with the apprehension that some farmers have expressed over data protection issues in relation to the new vet medicines and fertilisers bill.
Minister McConlagoue said his department has taken steps to ensure that the data collected under the new bill will comply “with all aspects of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) rules and other data protection requirements”.
“The robust data-sharing provisions in the legislation will allow the specific sharing of data with other bodies to achieve environmental and sustainability targets and will be fully in line with GDPR and other data protection legislation,” he added.
But Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on agriculture, Matt Carthy, said there will be a north-south dimension in relation to the new bill and the fact that farmers will have to register as a fertiliser economic operator is a “substantial additional requirement” and will have a “negative impact on all-Ireland trade”.
The TD for Cavan-Monaghan said: “It is absolutely logical that this is also going to create a loophole that will undermine the very basis of the legislation in that it will just take one or two bad operators in this state to purchase north of the border and either maliciously or by mistake transfer fertiliser from the north into the south and not have it registered.
“I’ve asked at different stages of the legislation for the minister to engage with the department in the north in order to try and address those concerns and I have to say I haven’t seen any evidence of that as of yet.”