The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) president has claimed that compulsory destocking of dairy cows is already happening.
Pat McCormack contradicted government ministers who stated that such a move is not being sought and will not happen.
Due to the amended nitrates regulations, he said that some family farms will be forced to cut cow numbers at the beginning of next year and potentially again in 2024.
The ICMSA president claimed that policies which the government has signed off on will result in “the removal of our family farm model and its replacement with the industrial scale of farm we see elsewhere”.
“This policy is being driven by the changes introduced under the nitrates regulations which were proposed and designed by our own government and cannot be blamed on the EU,” he said.
McCormack believes that politicians, both national and local, seem completely unaware of the enormous effects the changes will have on fulltime commercial dairy farmers.
He called on the government to renegotiate the nitrates derogation with the EU as he said that these farmers do not have the resources to take up ‘diversification options’.
From next year, organic nitrogen (N) excretion rates on dairy farms will change – banding will see higher-yielding cows given a higher rate due to their larger feed intake requirements.
The ICMSA president cited the example of a family farm of 30ha that can milk up to 84 cows this year.
With banding and the potential for the maximum nitrogen (N) level per hectare to fall from 250 to 220kg, McCormack said that very same family farm may only be allowed have 62 cows in 2024.
“That reduction of 22 cows effectively wipes out the economic sustainability of this farm and replicated through the neighbouring and similar farms, it undermines the viability of the wider rural community,” he said.
McCormack accused the government of introducing “massive policy changes without consultation”, pointing to the amended nitrates rates as an example.
He said that the government policy amounts to a ‘three-card trick’ where farming communities were distracted and told to focus on one highly visible area while ruinous policy changes were smuggled past without any worthwhile consultation or analysis.
“We have always said that farmers are happy and willing to play our role in this historic drive to sustainability, but we seem to be the only element that remembers that there was meant to be room for economic sustainability as well.
“The government seems to have decided that there’s no need to consult or work with our farming communities and that this slippery tactic of distraction and elimination will work.
“It’s up to our rural representatives to insist that our farming communities get at least the same level of consultation and consideration that the government seems very happy to give everyone else,” the ICMSA president concluded.