According to new figures revealed by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, there are likely to be 2,150 farmers directly affected by the changes to the nitrates derogation.

This data is based on the number of farmers who had a whole-farm stocking rate greater than 220kg N/ha in 2022 and have at least some land affected by the new purple map based on their 2023 BISS application.

The Minister revealed the information in response to a question by Fianna Fail TD for Tipperary Jackie Cahill.

Up to this point, it was not known how many farmers were directly affected by the change in the upper limit in the derogation from 250kg N/ha to 220kg N/ha for farmers in the purple area.

The final figures for 2023 are not yet available, as the actual stock numbers for the year won’t be available until after the year end.

The data shows that almost 20% of directly affected farmers have less than 20ha in their 2023 BISS application, while 15% of those affected are farming more than 100ha.

The full breakdown of the number of directly affected farmers is outlined in Table 1.

Directly affected farmers will need to either reduce their stock numbers, acquire additional land or export slurry off their holding.