On-site inspections of fertiliser imports will be carried out at farms and merchants’ premises by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) to ensure “compliance” under the new vet and medicines bill, the Seanad has been told.
The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, told the Seanad that there are no provisions in the new Veterinary Medicinal Products, Medicated Feed and Fertilisers Regulation Bill that will prevent farmers from buying fertiliser from outside the state.
But Minister McConalogue said that the second part of the bill – which will lead to the creation of a national fertiliser database – will require on-site inspections by DAFM “as part of its compliance verification programme”.
The database will compile data on import, sale, supply and use of fertilisers and “allow for analysis of data” to assist in the administration of other DAFM schemes.
The minister told the Seanad that cross-border trade in fertilisers will not be disrupted as a result of the new bill and that he believes this trade will continue.
“The only additional requirement will be that such transactions are imports and farmers buying from Northern Ireland, as an example, will have to register as a fertiliser economic operator.
“The department will include on-site inspections as part of its compliance verification programme, including risk-based on-farm inspections and inspections at an importer and merchant level, to confirm accuracy of information being loaded onto the database,” Minister McConalogue added.
During the second reading of the vet and medicines bill in the Seanad, a number of senators highlighted farmers’ concerns over data storage and data sharing in relation to the new national fertiliser database.
The minister told senators that his department “has taken the steps necessary to ensure the data collected under this bill will comply with all aspects of data protection regulations, rules and requirements”.
He added: “The robust data-sharing provisions in the legislation will allow the specific sharing of data with other bodies to achieve environmental and sustainability targets to be fully in line with the general data protection regulation and other data legislation.”