Macra na Feirme is the latest farm organisation to slam proposals from the European Commission to extend an environmental permit system to large cattle farms, and to increase the number of pigs and poultry farms that would also be subject to the system.
Macra said that the proposals would see family farms needing to secure the permits to operate under the new rules.
Those same permits currently apply to large-scale industrial factories and mines.
“It is unthinkable that the European Commission would put further roadblocks in farmers’ paths at a time of contracting food production – particularly in livestock sectors where this year it is predicted that dairy herds across the EU will reduce by 1.5% – and amid food security concerns.
“The commission cannot be serious that a herd of cattle or cows in Ireland’s leafy green fields is comparable to a landfill site,” Macra national president John Keane said this morning (Wednesday, April 6).
“Our farms are producing food vital for humans to exist, not waste,” he added.
Keane stressed that the proposals “come at a time when food security across the world is an issue and when farmers right across the EU are struggling financially”.
The Macra national president also noted that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is proposed as a tool to aid the transition to a permit system for farmers that would come under the remit of the updated regulations.
“Irish farmers are left feeling that [the CAP] no longer supports food production. We need our MEPs and our [Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue] to stand firm for Irish farmers and ensure that the commission is fully aware of the green credentials of Irish agriculture, and that these proposed permits in no way reflect or apply to Irish farms,” Keane concluded.
The commission officially published a set of proposals to update the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) yesterday (April 5).
At present, the permitting regime covers some 50,000 large industrial installations and intensive livestock farms in Europe. These installations need to comply to emissions conditions by applying activity-specific ‘best available techniques’ (BATs) for tackling emissions.
The commission says that the updated rules will “cover more relevant sources of emissions, make permitting more effective, reduce administrative costs, increase transparency and give more support to breakthrough technologies and other innovative approaches”.