The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is reminding farmers that the closing date for applications under the 2020 Nitrates Derogation is this Friday, April 24.
The department is advising farmers to contact their agricultural advisor to determine if they should avail of the facility.
The department is also reminding farmers that applications for the Nitrates Derogation should be made online.
The end of year Nitrogen and Phosphorus Statements (N and P Statements) for 2019 are available on the department’s online system at: www.agfood.ie.
Farmers who are not already registered on agfood.ie can log on and click the ‘Register’ button.
‘Bureaucracy’
In other department-related news, it has hit back at complaints over “bureaucracy” in dealing with live exports, and has paid tribute to the frontline staff involved in facilitating exports during the current Covid-19 situation.
In a statement today, Monday, April 20, the department noted that its staff “has worked both domestically and internationally, to support agriculture through this most difficult of periods”.
“In circumstances where many parts of the economy are necessarily in lockdown, the work that these people do ensures that the regulatory and administrative functions required to keep food processors up and running, to facilitate livestock sales and to keep live exports moving, continues,” the department’s statement noted.
“Without this work these activities would cease altogether,” the statement stressed.