The Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has told Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue to “go back” and get the nitrates reduction changed.
Minister McConalogue was due to meet with farm organisations on the issues of the nitrates reduction and scheme payment dates today (Thursday, September 7).
This comes after the announcement that some areas of the country will see the derogation reduced from 250kg of organic nitrogen (N) per hectare to 220kg N/ha from January 2024.
Speaking after the meeting with Minister McConalogue, ICMSA president Pat McCormack said that his association’s message had been as “simple as it was necessary”:
“We told Minister McConalogue that he just has to go back and get this unscientific reduction changed to take account of undeniable realities.
“This is not an abstract consideration; for hundreds of farmers the decision he accepted yesterday means that generations of farming will end, it literally is as simple as that.
“That can’t happen and it certainly can’t happen when the kind of sweeping measures we’ve already introduced to improve water quality have not even been given a chance to demonstrate their effectiveness.”
“We have to go back and get the European Commission to recognise that this reduction solves absolutely nothing and just makes existing problems worse. Those are the facts and it’s up to the minister to get them in [front] of the EU Commissioner,” he said.
Payment dates
McCormack said that the minister confirmed that the approved 2024 payments will be made on the dates that had applied in 2022. However, the ICMSA requested that this should also apply to 2023 payments.
The minister also said that “100% of those who applied under [Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme (TAMS)] Tranche 1 will receive approval and that mobile equipment can be purchased prior to approval”, McCormack said.
The ICMSA president added that Minister McConalogue also undertook to “fast-track” approval for applications concerning slurry storage.
Despite welcoming the concessions and clarifications offered, McCormack said that these were “wholly overwhelmed” by the scale of the “mess” in which the government had landed 3,000 Irish family farms.
“We have to see what we can rescue from the absolute mess in which the Irish government’s apathy has landed thousands of Irish farmers,” the ICMSA president said.
While the ICMSA attended the meeting, the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) held a protest outside Agriculture House in Dublin over delayed farmer payments coinciding with the meeting.
Macra, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) and the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) did also not attend the meeting.