The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed that over 1,500 farmers have registered on the new National Fertiliser Database.

The database became fully operational at the end of July following the Veterinary Medicinal Products, Medicated Feed and Fertiliser Regulations 2023 Act being signed into law.

From September 1, 2023, it will be compulsory for farmers and other professional fertiliser end-users to be registered on the database to purchase fertiliser (including lime).

This means that from that date it will be an offence to sell or purchase fertiliser without being registered.

Farmers (or their agents) can register for the database through the department’s online agfood portal.

Database

The latest figures, provided by the DAFM to Agriland, show that 1,535 farmers – professional fertiliser end users – had registered on the database by August 2, 2023.

13 non-farmer professional fertiliser end users had also registered.

The data states that 51 fertiliser economic operators, which includes merchants registered with the department, had joined the database by that date.

space for nature sheep census DAFM Glanbia BovINE broadband rollout Irish Rural Link mental health Green Cert agriculture farming Gardaí broadband training audits bord bia BPS applications Agri-food bord bia resilience remote working internship Teagasc BISS eco-scheme tariff suspension

The department has written to all farmers outlining the requirements under the National Fertiliser Database.

The letter includes the following actions that must be undertaken:

  • Register as a professional fertiliser end-user to purchase fertiliser from September 1, 2023;
  • Once registered, declare closing fertiliser stock on their farm as of 11:59p.m on September 14 (the end of the fertiliser spreading period). Farmers will have until October 15, to make this declaration;
  • Register as a fertiliser economic operator if you are involved in importing fertiliser (from a third country or another EU member state) and involved in farm-to-farm transfers of fertiliser.

From September 1, imports into the state must be notified to the National Fertiliser Database (within 72 hours of import); and all data on fertiliser transactions will be recorded from that date.

By December 15, fertiliser economic operators (including manufacturers/blenders, merchants, and importers) must submit September, October and November 2023 sales data to the database.

The December 2023 sales data will have to be uploaded from January 15, 2024. From then on, all monthly sales data will have to be submitted by the 15th of the following month.

A person found to be in breach of the new regulations could be fined up to €5,000.

DAFM FERTILISER NATIONAL FERTILISER DATABASE