The exclusion of cattle farms from new EU rules governing emissions from industrial installations has been welcomed by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA).
Pat McCormack, president of the ICMSA, welcomed the measure and said that the comparisons between family farms and industrial installations had been more about “anti-farming ideology than any kind of logical comparison”.
Cattle farms will not be included in the revised and expanded EU Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) following an agreement between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU.
However, both institutions agreed that the European Commission will undertake a review of how emissions from cattle farms should addressed.
This review will take place before December 31, 2026. The possibility remains open that cattle farms may be included in the IED sometime after that review, though it appears that a fresh legislative proposal would be required from the commission to do so.
McCormack noted that before the review it was vital that what he described as “the tide of anti-farmer and extreme environmentalism was challenged” before that final decision was taken.
“ICMSA has been highlighting for years the growing and distressing disconnect so evident in radicalised people between food and farming.
“The EU must make and maintain the real connection between real farming and real food, for all our sakes,” the ICMSA president said.
Industrial emissions
The commission originally proposed that livestock farms of stocking rates above 150 livestock units (LUs), would be included (a livestock unit does not necessarily equate to one animal, e.g., a dairy cow is 1LU, but a younger bovine would be less than 1LU, while a pig would be lower again, and a chicken only a small fraction of 1LU).
However, there appeared to be little appetite in the council and much of the parliament, for the inclusion of livestock farms over 150LUs.
After some discussion, both institutions have agreed to exclude cattle farms, but also to include the clause that the commission undertake the review of cattle farm emissions.
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) has said that including cattle under the scope of the IED would have been “a huge mistake”, with the association’s president, Dermot Kelleher, saying: “Cattle and sheep farms are not the same as big industrial factories.”