Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue will meet with farm organisations tomorrow (Thursday, September 7) on the issues of the Nitrates Derogation and scheme payment dates.
A meeting of the Farmers’ Charter had been due to be held tomorrow. However, following developments today (Wednesday, September 6) on the future of the derogation, it is understood that the meeting tomorrow will not be a formal meeting of the charter.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said this evening that, “in recognition of the importance of scheme payments and the timing of their issue to farmers”, and to update farmers on recent discussions with the European Commission on the Nitrates Derogation, the minister had invited farm organisations representatives to meeting tomorrow morning.
According to the department, the aim of the meeting is for the minister to discuss the two issues with the organisations and to listen to their concerns.
Commenting on the meeting, Minister McConalogue said: “I recognise how important payments are to farmers and in this regard, we have committed …to explore, for 2024, bringing payment dates back in line with the previous programme.”
It was announced earlier in the year that payment dates for the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) – the replacement for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – and the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) scheme would be pushed back by several weeks.
According to the minister, the technological and administrative challenges brought about by the new CAP programme have caused the delay, which, it is hoped, will be addressed by next year.
“I want to reiterate to the farm organisations that the government and my department is fully committed to making payments to farmers under the various schemes at the earliest date possible and to the maximum number of farmers possible.”
Earlier today, the minister confirmed that the European Commission would not revisit any of the conditions to Ireland’s Nitrates Derogation, making it virtually a certainty that some areas of the country will see the upper derogation limit of 250kg of nitrogen (N) per hectare cut to 220kgN/ha.
On this issue, the minister said this evening: “I made a strong case to [the Commissioner for Environment] for the retention of Ireland’s 250kg/ha derogation until the next [Nitrates Derogation] review. However, he made it clear that there is no prospect of revisiting the current decision.
“This meeting [tomorrow] will provide an opportunity to discuss with farm organisations how critical it is that farmers manage their holdings within the derogation limits applying from January 1 next year and the support that my department can offer,” the minister added.