Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue has been urged to highlight the measures farmers have adopted to reduce nitrogen leakage to the European Commission.
The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) raised “stark concerns” about the future of Ireland’s Nitrates Derogation with the minister and further engagement will take place today (Tuesday, July 4).
IFA president Tim Cullinan said that the report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifying areas where the nitrates derogation limit must be reduced is “flawed”.
Derogation farms in these areas will likely be required to reduce their application rate of manure from a maximum of 250kg nitrogen (N)/ha per year to 220kg N/ha per year from January 1, 2024, the report states.
Stressing that losing the current derogation limit would have “huge implications” particularly for the dairy and the beef sector in Ireland, Cullinan told Agriland:
“Overall, if we were to reduce from 250kg N/ha per year to 220kg N/ha per year there is a potential cost there of anything up to €236 million for the rural economy.
“If you break that down to farmer level, depending on the size, from the average dairy farmer it would be anywhere between €10,000-20,000 per farmer per year.”
Measures adopted by farmers to reduce nitrogen leakage from 2023 are not taken into account in the water quality report, which found that nitrate concentrations were higher in 2022 than in 2021.
These measures, Cullinan said, include banding, a 15% decline in the use of inorganic fertilisers on land, and the adoption of low-emission techniques of slurry spreading.
“There is no point in basing a map on what has happened in 2021 versus 2022 because all latest measures were only adopted in the beginning of this year.
“Farmers have adopted the measures so we need time to see how this is going to work out,” Cullinan, who said the IFA also directly engaged with the European Commission, emphasised.
Nitrates derogation
Minister McConalogue needs to go back to the European Commission with a revised proposal highlighting the measures that farmers have adopted, Cullinan said.
“Whatever proposal he puts back in, it needs to be based on science,” the IFA president said claiming that the map published by the EPA is “absolutely incorrect”.
“We are very concerned of the direction that this is currently going. The process is flawed and just based on a map without following up with proper science, all of this has to be evaluated.
“I can’t stress enough how concerned we are in trying to maintain this derogation because the implications are stark for the industry,” the IFA president told Agriland.
The EPA report detailed that the highest densities of derogation farm holdings are located “in the southeast, the southwest, and to a lesser extent in the northeast”.
The EPA has developed a Targeting Agricultural Measures map to identify the types of “agricultural issues that require targeted measures”.
The aim of the report, required by the commission, was “to identify waterbodies that are polluted, at risk of pollution or showing worsening trends as a result of agricultural activities”, the EPA said.