Nitrates - At last a conclusion

By Matt Dempsey

The granting of the Nitrates Derogation for the 250 kg of organic nitrogen per ha brings to a conclusion a messy period of unnecessary strife on what should have been a straightforward husbandry issue.

The final draft of the Derogation to be issued by the Commission makes a number of key points. In particular it acknowledges for the first time the very serious economic effects it would have had for the commercial livestock sector of Irish farming in pinpointing that 20% of livestock units are "potentially covered by the derogation and 10,000 farms''. These figures alone provide the justification for the sustained campaign against the original proposals.

Given the recent scandals engulfing the local authorities and the Department of the Environment in the astonishing cavalier attitude to the discharge of raw sewage into waters supplying drinking water, farming emerges with an exemplary environmental status. The Commission accepts the recent EPA report showing that average Nitrate concentrations in ground water was only 2.5 milligrams per litre compared with the theoretical upper limit of 50 while sampling points in rivers showed only 6.9 mg/l.

Given these figures the original Department of Agriculture stance in the face of the Nitrates Directive, that Ireland simply did not have a Nitrates problem was the correct one. However, a mixture of bureaucracy, hype and hypocracy led to the ludicrous first proposals.

However despite the factual record a number of key points should be noted. Especially that farms applying for the derogation will have to be 80% grassland, an annual fertiliser plan for both Nitrogen and Phosphorus will have to be prepared before March 1st each year with details of rotation and what total each field is to receive as well as a record of manure movements on and off the farm and a full soil test every four years. As well as all that no peas or beans can be sown on farms granted a derogation.

There is little doubt that farms applying over the normal 170 kg of organic nitrogen per ha and so being forced to apply for the derogation are being lumbered with a tedious time consuming new level of bureaucratic supervision. There is in the body of the legislation various obligations on the national authorities to supervise the actual working of the derogation and those farming on sandy and sandy loam farms are promised that they will be rigorously monitored.

Clearly it is better that our most productive farms can avail of the derogation. There is nothing to ease the plight of those with pig or poultry slurry to dispose of and the scope for extra layers of work to be imposed by the national authorities is real and significant. We have seen how this latitude can be interpreted in the inspections for the Single Farm Payment.

What farmers will most object to is the lack of proportionality in how non problem areas are being rigorously supervised while real pollution problems inflicting real ill health on the human population are all too apparent with no sanctions being applied to those responsible. It should also be pointed out that this is another example of extra costs and constraints being imposed on EU and Irish farmers while being told at the same time that we must be internationally competitive.

Nevertheless the derogation should be acknowledged and welcomed.