The idea that farmers won’t get approval for slurry storage investments under TAMS III until late August or early September “writes off the whole year”, says the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA).
ICMSA president Pat McCormack described the timeline as “illogical and unworkable” and warned that it would leave farmers planning to invest in slurry storage with “nothing at all” done come year end.
He said investment in such slurry storage is one of the most effective areas for environmental improvement and that it should be “top of the list” in terms of agriculture’s sustainability ambitions.
Driving farmers mad
The Tipperary dairy farmer suggested that the TAMS III application sequencing is the kind of thing that “just drives farmers mad and makes a mockery of the Department’s own list of priorities”.
“The deliberations on TAMS made no amendment to the calendar for applying for a grant for improved slurry storage, so we are left with a date for those applications of mid- to late June, with a decision on approval to be expected in late August or early September, with the successful farmer-applicant expected to find a contractor and begin the work just as the days get shorter, darker, and wetter.
“Would it not have made so much more sense to bring forward that sequence so that the approval and construction was possible by that mid-June deadline when the weather and ground conditions would allow for faster and more efficient construction?,” he asked.
‘Incredibly frustrating’
McCormack claimed that the timeline calculations were “not overly complex” to work out and he said it was “incredibly frustrating for farmers to have to plead for the obvious and logical sequence to be introduced”.
“The Minister should intervene on this matter and rearrange the timeline in a way that has the Department issuing approvals by mid-June, so that the farmers can get the builders, the builders can get the weather and the Department gets the slurry storage improvements that are the whole point of the process,” he added.
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