The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS) has written to Irish MEPs to highlight its concerns in relation to the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).
Under the European Commission’s proposed changes to the IED, a permitting regime would be extended to many more farms than it currently applies to, including, for the first time, cattle farms.
The directive already applies to large pig and poultry operations.
IED
The purpose of the directive, currently at committee stage in the European Parliament, is to regulate industrial emissions through a permit scheme operated by EU member states.
At the end of April, the EU Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) voted against proposals to put a permitting system in place for family farms.
AGRI wants the revised rules to only apply to farms with more than 40,000 places for poultry, 2,000 places for production pigs or 750 places for sows, and to farms of 750 livestock units (LSU).
The committee also voted on deleting the aggregation rule (which affects partnerships) and introduced several provisions simplifying registration procedures and reducing obligations for farm operators.
In March, EU environment ministers had proposed a threshold of 350 LSU above which permits would be required.
ICOS
The next stage in the IED review moves to the EU Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) where a vote will take place on May 24, ahead of a full plenary vote expected in September.
ICOS has now written to Irish MEPs explaining the consequences of widening the scope of the IED to include livestock farms.
The society warned that some of the current proposals would result in added burdens, bureaucracy and costs associated with registration and maintaining records for farmers.
It also highlighted that the permit information would, under initial proposals, be open to the public for input.
“Members of the public would not be sufficiently educated or informed of the scientific principles underlying modern farming practice and would affect the quality of ‘input’ into permitting procedures,” ICOS said.
Farms
In the letter, ICOS urged Irish MEPs to make representations to ensure the directive is not extended to grass-based livestock production systems and that the minimum thresholds for exemption are maintained as high as is reasonably possible and practicable.
Copa-Cogeca, the European farm and co-operative umbrella body, has also written to members of the environment committee to highlight concerns.
This includes not increasing the thresholds of rearing activities of pigs and poultry, not including cattle or mixed farms, and deleting the aggregation rule.