It is still “early days” in the negotiations on the EU Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience, Niall Ryan at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has said.
The proposed law aims to have all soils in the EU in “healthy condition” by 2050, and requires all member states to monitor all soils within so called “soil districts”.
The directive has been revised to distinguish between “good”, “moderate”, and “poor” soil condition, DAFM senior inspector in the nature and land use division, Tom Medlycott said.
Generally, Irish soils are considered to be “relatively healthy” but there are issues around soil sealing, soil compaction, and some nutrient excesses in certain areas, Medlycott said.
Soil monitoring
Soils that are considered in “good” condition meet all criteria in the annex of the directive, while soils missing one or two criteria are in “moderate” or “poor” condition respectively.
Soil descriptors with criteria for “healthy soil condition” established at EU level include, for example, loss of soil organic carbon, salinisation, and soil erosion, according to the annex.
Ryan and Medlycott were both speaking on the soil monitoring directive at a recent meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
Part of the soil measurements proposed will be nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), as well as a range of other chemical, physical and biological properties, they said.
Peat soils and farmland
For soils that have been drained, including for agricultural purposes, it does “not necessarily” mean they need to restored to their previous condition, Medlycott said.
Committee member Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice argued that active, raised bog cannot grow unless the land is rewetted, stressing that “there is no in-between”.
Land considered “poor”, within a district, has to reach “favourable” status by 2050. The criteria that has been failed will determine the actions that must then be taken, Medlycott said.
A healthy peat soil is a soil that can provide as many eco-system services as possible, Ryan said, however, there is “no clarification” on the favourable status on farmed peat soil yet.
Raising stark concerns, Deputy Fitzmaurice said that there is “no hope” that Donegal, the west or the midlands, or areas that have peaty soil, can achieve the required status.
“If land meets, for argument’s sake, a bulk density test, a phosphorous test or is biologically active, then the soil could be deemed as being of improved status.
“If it does not, then farmers will be asked to take steps and a number of practices,” Ryan said adding that soil tests do not consider what happened on the land before the directive.
Regardless of the level of districts and the sampling procedure decided, Ryan said that the individual farmer will not be identified and samples taken will be reflective of that district.
“It is not that an individual farmer whose sample is taken has to do certain things and nobody else has to do anything”, he said adding that those samples identify soil issues, if there are any.
The directive is not linked to farm payments, Ryan said. “Farmers currently receiving the single farm payment are respecting a number of good agricultural and environmental conditions.
“Many of those are contributing to good soil management. These would align with what this directive is trying to propose”, the DAFM representative said.
“We need to watch the directives coming in. We had the habitats directive and the water framework directive and we will have this soils directive and a nature restoration directive as well.
“If we do not watch tight, we are going to leave farmers in marginal land looking at a theme park, not farming,” Deputy Fitzmaurice said at the committee meeting last week.
EU directive
Discussion also continues in relation to which competent authority would carry out soil testing and how, sampling depth, penalties, and whether soil testing should takes place every five years.
The committee heard that there will be two meetings a month on the directive between now and May. However, it will be for the next European Commission to decide how to proceed.
In Ireland, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is the lead negotiator on the EU Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience.