The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has said that farmers are “flying blind” without the latest nitrates (N) and phosphorous (P) data from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).
Denis Drennan, deputy president of the farming organisation, said it is “an astonishing omission” by the department not to publish the most up-to-date figures for farmer N and P use.
He said that in previous years farmers were able to check online early in July and at regular intervals thereafter allowing them to adjust their stocking rate accordingly.
“The kind of shortfall in knowledge that this failure represents is incredibly serious,” Drennan said.
ICMSA
The ICMSA deputy president said farmers need to know where they stand on their general “room to manoeuvre”, along with specific issues related to Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Schemes (TAMS).
“That would be true in any year, but in this year where both cow banding and the derogations situation are already going to be causing chaos then farmers will find the department’s inability to inform individual farmers of where they stand in relation to the limits absolutely chaotic and inexcusable.
“In 2021, we calculate that farmers had eight opportunities to check their N and P usage. So far this year, we’ve had none,” Drennan said.
The ICMSA deputy president has called on the DAFM to “immediately publish the most up-to-date figures and then provide opportunities for regular updates and checks”.
Drennan said that “farmers were effectively being asked by the department to obey a speed limit without being supplied with a speedometer”.
He said that the department must “redeploy resources immediately so that the relevant data was made available to the farmers concerned”.