The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has said that the European Commissioner for the Environment “wants to be helpful” to Irish farmers on the nitrates derogation issue.
A delegation from the IFA met with Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius yesterday (Wednesday, November 8) in Brussels to discuss the impending cut to the nitrates derogation.
At present, the derogation allows farmers who avail of it to farm at stocking rates up to 250kg of organic nitrogen (N) per hectare. However, the maximum stocking rate under the derogation is set to be reduced to 220kgN/ha in most of the country from January (the maximum stocking rate without a derogation is 170kgN/ha).
Farmers who are at stocking rates between 220kgN/ha and 250kgN/ha face the prospect of penalties to farm schemes being incurred if they are still over 220kgN/ha come January.
The IFA told Commissioner Sinkevicius that it is “completely unreasonable” to expect farmers in the areas where the derogation is to be reduced to cut their stocking rate to 220kgN/ha by the end of the year, which is less than eight weeks away.
According to IFA president Tim Cullinan, farmers who face a cut in the derogation have many in-calf cows.
“Farmers made the decision to put their cows in calf last spring before any decision was taken to reduce some areas to 220kgN/ha. It is unreasonable and not in line with good animal welfare to now expect farmers to cull these in-calf cows,” Cullinan said.
The IFA president said that the meeting with the commissioner yesterday was “forthright but constructive”, with the commissioner confirming to the IFA that he will visit Ireland on November 23.
“It was clear that the commissioner wants to be helpful to Irish farmers on the issue. It is vital that [Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue] and his department have proper engagement with the commissioner and his officials to explore possible compromises,” Cullinan said.
According to the IFA, the mid-term review of the current nitrates derogation, which was carried out this year and which has resulted in the cut to the derogation, was “unfair” and did not give any time for the measures farmers are already carrying out to have a positive effect on water quality.
“The reality is that reducing the upper limit of the derogation from 250kgN/ha to 220kgN/ha will have little impact on water quality, but it will have huge consequences for the farmers directly impacted and for thousands more farmers indirectly impacted, as it will further increase the cost of rented land. We stressed this very strongly to the commissioner,” Cullinan said.
According to the IFA president, the commissioner said he would “engage fully” with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar when they meet later this month.
“In the interim, it is absolutely vital that the minister engages fully with the commissioner and his officials,” Cullinan said.
Legal concerns over derogation review
According to the IFA, the mid-term review carried out earlier this year was not consistent with the EU statutory instrument that granted the current derogation for 2022-2025.
These concerns were raised in a recent letter from the IFA to Minister McConalogue, in which the the farm organisation outlined inconsistencies in how the review was carried out, which were highlighted by the IFA’s legal advisors.
In that letter, the IFA claimed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in determining the eutrophication status of water catchments, compared two three-year periods, which does not comply with the derogation regulations that two one-year periods (2022 versus 2021) be compared.
Eutrophication refers to the process by which a body of water becomes enriched with nutrients to the point it causes flourishing and build-ups of algae. In water quality terms, it is considered a form of pollution.
Concerns have previously been raised elsewhere that taking account of eutrophication in determining which areas would see a derogation reduction produced an unbalanced result, as eutrophication can have other causes beside nutrient losses from farmland.
The IFA’s letter to the minister also claimed that EPA, in some cases, identified entire water catchment areas that drain into a river estuary as being subject to the new 220kgN/ha limit, even if some sub-catchments of the area may not have failed to meet the required water quality criteria.
For those reasons, the IFA claimed that the EPA’s report, which is the basis of the mid-term review of the current derogation, is “materially non-compliant” with the commission’s statutory instrument granting Ireland the derogation.