The agreement between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU on revisions of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) has been welcomed as recognising “the specifics of agriculture”.
Installations covered by the IED (which already includes the largest pig and poultry operations) are required to undergo a permitting regime in order to operate.
Cattle farms will not be included in the revised and expanded EU IED following an agreement between the parliament and the council.
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.”
Kelleher added: “The reality is that including livestock farming in the scope of the IED would have added to the intense pressure that farmers are already under to deal with more and more regulation while insufficient returns from the marketplace are driving them to work harder every year.
Kelleher claimed that dealing with the sustainability of livestock farming through the lens of emissions “is a flawed concept as it fails to acknowledge all the positive aspects associated with grass-based livestock farming”.
“Therefore, rather than regulating livestock farming via a simplistic approach, [we] will continue to advocate for pathways to reduce emissions that takes account of the carbon storage capacity of grasslands and all other parameters specific to livestock farming,” Kelleher added.
The agreement between the council and the parliament was also welcomed by Irish MEP Billy Kelleher.
He said: “There was no two ways about it. This has been a difficult file for both the council and parliament negotiators. Both sides needed to make concessions to ensure that a deal could be agreed.
“For Ireland, one of the most important outcomes from this agreement is non-inclusion of cattle under the scope of the directive… This is something that will be welcomed by dairy farmers in Ireland. It would have placed them under a lot of pressure financially and administratively,” Billy Kelleher added.
“However, the non-inclusion of cattle does not mean we should should rest on our laurels. All of us need to redouble our efforts to reduce all forms of emissions from our farms. It is the right thing to do in general, and we shouldn’t be waiting for EU legislation to do that.”
For pig and poultry farmers that will now come under the scope of the Industrial Emissions Directive, Kelleher acknowledged that it will be challenging, and called for support to be put in place to enable the transition.
“All of our economic activities generate emissions of one form or another. I believe the right balance has been struck between putting downward pressure on emissions while also recognising that we cannot overburden the owners of businesses and farms,” he added.