The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has said that 92% of dairy farmers declared a nitrates excretion band rate for this year.
In February, DAFM wrote to all farmers who, according to its records, had a milk supply contract in 2022.
Based on that list and the new entrants that declared a band based on supplying milk in 2023, 15,122 farmers declared an excretion rate band for their dairy herd by the September 30 deadline.
99% of these declarations were made through the on-line portal developed by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) on behalf of DAFM.
This means that 8% or 1,315 eligible farmers did not make a declaration.
DAFM
The new Nitrates Action Programme (NAP) for this year introduced the practice of banding.
It is part of a series of stronger measures being implemented by the EU to protect water quality, including the extension of the closed periods for slurry spreading.
Prior to the introduction of this system, each dairy cow in the country was assigned a standard figure of 89kg of nitrogen (N)/head.
Under this year’s changes, herds will be placed in one of three excretion bands depending on their average milk kg/cow.
In the event that no declaration was made by a dairy farmer, their herd has been assigned, by default, to the highest excretion rate band of 106kg organic N/cow for 2023.
“That position will remain unless the herd owner confirms to DAFM’s satisfaction that a different excretion rate band (92kg N/cow/year or 80kg N/cow/year) is appropriate for the herd,” a DAFM spokesperson told Agriland.
“Many of the farmers that have been defaulted to the highest band are believed to be farmers who chose not to engage as that was the appropriate band for their herd in any case,” they added.
Teagasc data shows that around one fifth of specialist dairy farms in 2021 had milk yields above 6,500kg/cow and would therefore be in the highest band.
The implications of banding will be most keenly felt by farms in the highest band who will either need to increase their land area or reduce milk production in the short term in order to comply with the new regulations.