The proposed changes to Ireland’s Nitrates Action Plan (NAP) which were revealed yesterday (Monday, August 9) have been criticised as “unnecessarily harsh” and seem “aimed at a group of dairy, livestock and tillage farmers”.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA), while accepting that some aspects of the proposed regulations were “unproblematic and would progress issues”, said today that other aspects targeted farmers who “are the backbone of our food exports and rural economy”.
According to Pat McCormack, the association’s president, some areas that will attract “legitimate criticism” from farmers include: the ban on slurry spreading after September 15; the ban on spreading soil water between November 15 and January 15; the reduction in chemical nitrogen (N) allowances; and the ‘banding’ of dairy cows that will penalise farmers with high-yielding cows.
“These proposals have the potential to inflict substantial costs on farmers and will also mean that some farmers could be forced to destock – with the massively negative implications for farmer incomes and the rural economy that involves.
“These aspects will have to be reviewed and recognition given to the practical realities of farming,” McCormack urged.
He called for the nitrates regulations to meet the twin aims of lowering the presence of nitrates in watercourses and keeping the commercial family farm going.
“Those aims are not incompatible. It is very possible to do both. But ICMSA would feel that that requires a balance of consideration and weight that is, we regret to say, not achieved in these regulations,” the ICMSA president argued.
“These nitrates regulations miss that balance that they have to hit.”
According to McCormack, farmers are already addressing water quality issues but needed the government to support them in doing so.
“We all know that overregulation that doesn’t reflect the practicalities of farming just will not work. It’s equally clear that aspects of the new nitrate regulations are an example of exactly this overregulation and will prove ineffective in exactly the usual way,” he said.
McCormack concluded: “The ICMSA will be making a submission based on practical amendments to the regulations that will ensure water quality is addressed while ensuring that family farms can continue to farm in an economically and environmentally sustainable way.”