Soiled water storage, proposed under the draft of Ireland’s next Nitrates Action Plan (NAP), could end up costing farmers anywhere from €15,000 up to €20,000.

This is according to Aidan Kelly of Agri Design and Planning Solutions (ADPS) who quoted these figures for a 100-cow herd, while farms with more cows could be looking at an even bigger figure.

The draft, which was published in early August, singled out slurry storage and management as a key element in the department’s proposals – with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) stating that there is a “slurry storage deficit on approximately 40% of dairy farms”.

In the published document, under the soiled water storage and management section, it states that the control and management of soiled water needs greater management, and that the addition of soiled water to slurry tanks is causing many of the issues related to storage capacity across the country.

To address this issue, it is proposed that:

  • Soiled water must be collected and kept separate to slurry on all holdings;
  • From January 1, 2022 – to reduce the impact of nutrient losses in the riskiest period, the spreading of soiled water will be prohibited between November 15 and January 15;
  • All holdings producing soiled water must have a minimum of four weeks’ storage in place by December 31, 2024.

Delving into costs and how these possible new developments will impact farmers and their pockets, Aidan Kelly spoke to Agriland.

He said: “It’s a huge worry for farmers out there, 100%. It’s been kind of rumbling this past 12 months about the possibility of this coming down the line, and it looks as if it’s going to become a reality.

“If you have an existing milking parlour and have no tank in that vicinity, and you have a lot of concrete around like a collecting yard, it’s going to be a big job to get in and rip that up and make space for a tank.

“The other problem is you only have a small window – during the dry-off period – to get a job like that done, and if something goes wrong and some part of the job gets held up [or the builder gets held up], you might not have a parlour to go into once cows start calving next spring.

“Then you’re going to have some farms that are winter milking and they won’t be able to stop [milking] to carry out a job like that [getting a tank put in].

“So, it’s going to be very difficult for some farmers if this becomes a reality. From designing parlours over the last 10-15 years, it’s nearly standard to put in a tank in the yard, so most modern dairy units will be in a better position than, say, existing dairy farms.

“With modern milking units, the idea was to segregate these washings from slurry anyway so that we could spread during the closed period for slurry.

“In terms of storage for soiled water, for a 100-cow herd say that will be dry for eight weeks, you’d be talking a tank with slats on top costing €15,000-20,000.

“Then you don’t know, at a later date, this tank might need to be roofed – which is another cost – so it’s a huge concern out there for not only dairy farmers, but those running other farming enterprises that are producing soiled water.

“Not only this, but we are also looking at having to cover up unroofed slurry tanks/lagoons/towers and possibly even unroofed cubicles down the line, so it’s definitely a worrying time for farmers.

“With these measures being mandatory, some form of grant aid is going to be needed at a rate of at least 60-70% across the board; 40% is no good – it’s not a drop in the ocean,” he concluded.