The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has said that supports will be vital to enable farmers to comply with the series of new measures set out in Ireland’s fifth Nitrates Action Programme (NAP) 2022-2025.
IFA Environment and Rural Affairs Committee chair, Paul O’Brien said: “The new Nitrates [Action] Programme will have significant implications for farmers across all sectors.
“Some of the new measures have financial implications and it is going to be important that farmers are supported either through grant aid or Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA) schemes to meet the greater environmental standards, which will benefit the entire country.
O’Brien said this year is shaping up to be an incredibly challenging year for farming across all sectors.
“The renewed focus on food security has to underpin all policy decisions in farming,” he said.
“It’s important that the department [of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM)] is cognisant of the challenges facing farmers and takes this into account during the transition to the new NAP.
“Some of the measures will have an immediate effect on farm businesses in 2022. For others, farmers need to be start to planning for this year,” he said.
He said it was very disappointing that the DAFM had introduced the measure to reduce total nitrogen (N) to 2.4kg/N (from 5kg/N) without consultation adding that this will have massive implications for farmers who export slurry.
The IFA chair said that the association had asked the department to introduce any changes collectively following the review of the technical tables, to minimise disruption and allow farmers time to prepare.
“There are a number of significant changes that farmers need to start planning for now that will be introduced on January 1, 2023. This includes the compulsory usage of LESS [low emission slurry spreading] for all farmers operating above 150kg livestock N/ha,” he said.
The IFA has also said that dairy farmers need to understand the impact of the new banded excretion rates on their farms.
The calculation of organic N and phosphate (P) production will be calculated on a rolling three-year average. The first calculation period is 2020-2022.