The Association of Farm Contractors in Ireland (FCI) has urged Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, to seek an extension to the deadline for shallow cultivation or sowing a crop after combine harvesting.
In a letter to the minister, the association said that 2023 is proving to be a difficult year for cereal harvesting due to three weeks of heavy rainfall.
The FCI said the current deadline dates will be “impossible to achieve due to poor harvesting conditions”.
FCI
Under the Nitrates Directive, tillage farmers are required to take measures to establish green cover as soon as possible post-harvest to prevent the pollution of waters caused by nitrates.
Shallow cultivation or sowing of a crop/catch crop must take place within 10 days of the baling of straw, or where straw is chopped, within 10 days of harvest.
But, in all circumstances, shallow cultivation or sowing of a crop/catch crop must take place within 14 days of harvesting.
However, the regulations allow for flexibility on the rules “in certain weather conditions”.
The FCI said it believes that now is the appropriate time to use the power available to Minister McConalogue to advise the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Housing, Darragh O’Brien of the urgency of the harvest situation and why the 14 days cultivation condition should not apply in 2023.
“The immediate priority of our FCI members who provide combine harvesting, straw management, and cultivation services to thousands of Irish farmers, is now to harvest the cereal crop of higher nutritional and monetary value, rather than devote scarce operator and machinery resources to harvesting straw and cultivation of soils,” John Hughes, FCI national chair, said.
“Due to wet weather conditions, many FCI contractors have been forced to leave straw on the ground.
“This is due to a combination of laid crops, where harvesting necessitated working at lower header heights, thereby resulting in less favourable conditions for straw drying due to lower stubble heights combined with ongoing poor weather conditions,” he added
“In these difficult circumstances, there is often a further requirement to ted and rake the straw in an effort to ensure that it is dry enough for baling,” he added.
“This adds a further machine operation with scarce time and machinery resources when the priority remains to harvest the cereal crop in the best possible conditions,” Hughes said.
A recent meeting of the National Fodder and Food Security Committee (NFFSC) heard that of the winter barley crops that have been harvested, only around 20% of the straw has been baled.
Bobby Miller, chair of the Irish Grain Growers’ Group (IGGG) told the meeting that tillage farmers feel they are being “hit from every direction” this year.
He also called for the cultivation rules for nitrates for tillage farmers to be scrapped this year, given the current weather conditions.
Agriland has contacted Minister McConalogue and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) for comment on the matter.