The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has welcomed proposed changes to nitrates excretion rates but has hit out at the “pointless” delay in implementation.
Last night (Thursday, February 29), Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue announced adjustments to the way nitrogen (N) excretion rates from calves and cows will be calculated.
The minister will bring these adjustments, which have been validated by Teagasc and University College Dublin (UCD), into the review of the 5th Nitrates Action Plan, (NAP) which “will be subject to appropriate assessment”.
He will also propose a reduction in the maximum chemical allowance for grassland, and a reduction in the timeframe for reporting slurry movements between farms to allow for “improved verification”.
This will involve a “timeframe of four days” for reporting livestock manure movements between farms.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) said that this will be rolled out in the coming weeks to allow “farmers sufficient time to declare any movements of manure that have already taken place in 2024”.
ICMSA
Speaking after last night’s meeting of the Agriculture Water Quality Working Group, the ICMSA president Denis Drennan welcomed the changes to the excretion rates for young calves and cows being fed a lower percentage protein concentrate.
He said the changes will be “hugely positive and practical” for farmers impacted by the reduction in the nitrates derogation.
“The net effect is that farmers will be able to retain more of their existing herd without having to rent additional land and export slurry.
“ICMSA has lobbied intensively for this change with the N figure for a calf from 0-3 months falling from 6kgs of N to 1kg of N.
“In addition, where a farmer uses on average a 13% protein ration on a freshweight basis for the year, the banding will change from 80kg of N to 76kgs for [dairy excretion] band 1, from 92kgs to 87kgs for band 2 and from 106kgs to 98kgs for band 3,” Drennan said.
The ICMSA president gave an example of a farmer with 100 cows in band 3 who had required 42ha to remain under 250kgs of N.
“That had increased to over 48ha with the reduction to 220kgs of N. If this farmer opts for the 13% average protein ration on a freshweight basis, to maintain his/her 100 cows, he/she will require 44.5ha.
“That farmer would have been losing 12 cows based on his or her 42ha holding after this change, for which ICMSA lobbied so hard, they will be losing five cows,” Drennan said.
Delay
However, the ICMSA president said that “once again farmers are being left in the Limbo of uncertainty” as the formal implementation of these measures is “going to be delayed through a failure of the department to move on the matter earlier and EU regulatory processes”.
He said that new rules on farmers can be brought in overnight, but when scientifically-proven changes are going to benefit farmers, then the “process” leads to “ridiculous and pointless delays”.
He called for the regulatory process to be concluded as soon as possible and for the new measures to apply from January 1, 2024.
“The retention of the Nitrates Derogation must be a government priority. This decision is the first positive move from our government, and it must be followed by much more,” Drennan said.