The “systemic failure” by the state to implement a tailored catchment-based approach, based on the best available science, is setting farmers up to fail, An Taisce warned this evening (Wednesday, February 21).
The environmental charity, also told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine this evening that the State is setting “water quality up to fail too”.
Dr. Elaine McGoff, head of advocacy with An Taisce, said: “Farmers, more than anyone, need honesty, it’s their livelihoods on the line.
“The truth is, the majority of the existing measures they are putting in place will not be effective for adequately reducing nitrogen, they will not reverse the water quality trends we’ve been seeing in the south and south-east.
“Farmers should be told that from the outset, not sold false promises.”
She said that water quality does not lie and that “the European Commission have already indicated they will take little else into account”.
Dr. McGoff was among a number of representatives from An Taisce, Coastwatch and Birdwatch Ireland who met with the Oireachtas agriculture committee this evening to discuss the nitrates directive and also the Nitrates Action Programme (NAP).
She told the committee that the starting point for any discussion on nitrates and the nitrates derogation “must be an acknowledgement that nitrate from dairy farming is negatively impacting on water quality”.
“We need a different approach to mitigate that impact,” she warned.
Dr. McGoff said that while there are many farmers “willingly putting measures in place on their farms”, these are frequently not measures designed to “adequately address nitrate leaching”.
“In many cases what we’re seeing is a nitrate problem, with phosphate solutions,” she added.
According to An Taisce, in order to address nitrate pollution there needs to be a “catchment-based approach, with measures tailored at the catchment scale, based on the current in-stream nitrate load, or pollution load” – as measured by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Derogation farmers
Dr. McGoff added: “Irish farmers, in particular derogation farmers currently, are being asked to jump through a growing number of environmental hoops and at their own cost.
“It is imperative that they can be confident that the measures which they put in place will actually address the environmental problem at hand.”
However, she told the committee that she currently has “little confidence that the existing measures will work sufficiently for nitrate” because of the systemic failure by the state to implement a tailored catchment-based approach.
BirdWatch Ireland
Meanwhile BirdWatch Ireland also delivered a stark message to the Oireachtas agriculture committee this evening setting out its concern over “the poor and declining status of many of Ireland’s waterbodies”.
Oonagh Duggan, head of advocacy with the organisation warned that when putting forward potential solutions to address environmental problems, it was vital “that we do not make another environmental problem worse”.
She detailed that the 2022 NAP requires tillage farmers in 14 counties to “shallow cultivate soils post-harvest and to eliminate 75-80% of winter stubbles to reduce nitrate loss to water bodies”.
But, Duggan said BirdWatch Ireland is “very seriously concerned about this requirement because of the effects the measure could have on wild birds many of whom are already red or amber listed”.
According to BirdWatch Ireland wild bird species like Linnet, Goldfinch, Skylark and birds of prey such as the Hen Harrier, Barn Owl and Kestrel are known to forage over winter stubbles and prey on small birds and mammals.
“We are calling on government to amend the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) regulations to rescind the shallow cultivation clause, until there is a proper assessment and consideration of the effects of such a change on our wild bird species.
“Government needs to ensure more joined up thinking on how we are addressing the environmental problems we face to avoid serious unintended consequences,” she added.
Paul Moore, who is a seventh-generation tillage and beef farmer from Middleton in east Cork, and a BirdWatch Ireland member, also told the Oireachtas committee that there has been very little research done in Ireland on how farmland birds use crops and fields during the year and “nothing on the use of stubble”.
He believes that the requirement to shallow cultivate stubble fields shortly after harvest as part of the NAP creates “a poor habitat for farmland birds”.
“It makes no sense to propose a solution to address water quality which could worsen the biodiversity crisis but that’s what we are facing as a result of these changes.
“Many farmers have been working hard through a range of agri-environment schemes over the years to support farmland birds.
“This change could negatively impact these efforts,” Moore told the committee.