Concerns have been raised that smaller farms will be hit with a cost burden after Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue moved to confirm the exclusion of dribble bar slurry spreading equipment from the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS).
In response to a parliamentary question from Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy, Minister McConalogue confirmed that dribble bars will not be included in the current TAMS programme (TAMS 3) due to apparent differences between how much emissions are saved versus the alternative trailing shoe technology.
The minister told Carthy: “Due to the emissions reduction differential between dribble bars and trailing shoes, and the need to meet Ireland’s national ammonia ceiling under the national emissions ceiling directive, I have decided that the dribble bar will not be available for grant aid under TAMS 3.”
However, this move has been criticised by the farm business chairperson in the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA).
Speaking to Agriland, Bill O’Keefe said: “We’ve been calling for [the inclusion of dribble bars] because we have a lot of farmers on heavier ground and on hilly farms where the trailing shoe is just too heavy a machine, it needs more horsepower in the tractors to pull it.
“On anything other than good, flat, level ground it’s a difficult machine to work, so you’re having to go up maybe 20, 30, 40 horsepower in the tractor, as well as the machine being heavier,” O’Keefe said.
He also pointed out that, while trailing shoes cannot be retrofitted to an existing tanker, a dribble bar can be fitted to many.
“A lot of tankers are suitable to fit the dribble bar on. It’s lighter, it doesn’t unbalance the tanker.
“We want to see the dribble bar available under TAMS, even as retrofitting the dribble bar on to an existing tanker, or being able to buy a tanker with a dribble bar. Both options are much cheaper [than the trailing shoe],” O’Keefe said.
From January 1, farms with stocking rates between 100kg of nitrogen (N) per hectare and 130kg of N per hectare will be required to spread slurry using low-emission slurry spreading equipment.
Many of the farmers that will be affected by this change currently use splash plates, and will have to upgrade their equipment to either a trailing shoe and dribble bar.
With that change coming in, O’Keefe called on Minister McConalogue to look again at the exclusion of dribble bars from TAMS.
“If [farmers] can’t get the dribble bar in TAMS, if they are putting on a dribble bar they would have to pay full price. It’s the expense of the machine, and the expense of having to change tractor and get a bigger tractor, or else you have to move to getting a contractor in, and a lot of these small farms might only want five or six loads spread,” the IFA farm business chair said.
“Rather than than looking at the trailing shoe being better than the dribble bar, the dribble bar is very much better than the splash plate, and we need to move towards that and [the minister] should be grant aiding moving towards that… We’re very disappointed that they’re not available at the moment ,” O’Keefe added.
In his response to Matt Carthy’s parliamentary question, Minister McConalogue downplayed the weight difference between the trailing shoe and the dribble bar, saying: “It should be noted that the weight difference between trailing hose (dribble bar) attachments and trailing shoe attachments is small, depending upon the design of the attachment.
“The lightest trailing hose (dribble bar) attachments start at around 410kg, while the lightest trailing shoe attachments start at around 450kg,” he said.