Over the coming weeks and months, sprayer use and the application of plant protection products will reach its peak. While cross-compliance inspections are suspended for now, they are anticipated to resume when life returns to some semblance of normality over the next couple of months. As such, it’s worth reminding readers of some of the issues that farmers who apply plant protection products (PPPs) encounter during farm inspections.

Inspectors scrutinise usage records to ensure that the products were used in a manner that minimises risk to the user, the environment and the food-chain

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) conducts approximately 1,400 full cross compliance inspections annually.

Where inspected farms were reported to have applied PPPs, Statutory Mandatory Requirement (SMR) 10 applies. The aim of this requirement is to ensure that the use of PPPs is necessary and the reasons for doing so are recorded.

Inspectors scrutinise usage records to ensure that the products were used in a manner that minimises risk to the user, the environment and the food-chain.

Non-compliance with these measures could result in penalties being issued to farmers.

In a statement to the Irish Farmers Journal, DAFM outlined the most common non-compliances of SMR 10 encountered during farm inspections.

Between the years 2014 and 2018, breaches of PPP registration, followed by issues with pesticide storage on-farm, were the top reasons for non-compliances

While they didn’t specify farming enterprise, many of the non-compliances apply to tillage farms as well as grassland farms.

Between the years 2014 and 2018, breaches of PPP registration, followed by issues with pesticide storage on-farm, were the top reasons for non-compliances.

The next most common non-compliances reported were the failure to maintain adequate PPP application records, followed by the invalid use of products and incomplete records of purchases, acquisitions and disposal of PPPs.

Of the inspections carried out in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively, 27%, 5% and 12%, of applicants applying PPPs were not registered as professional users with the Pesticide Controls Division (PCD). This is a mandatory retirement for anyone applying PPPs.

Sprayer tests

From 2020 onwards, sprayers with a boom length of over 3m must be tested every three years. Sprayers first had to be tested by 26 November 2016, where a period of five years was allowed between tests.

However, once tested post-2020, the period is now reduced to three years. DAFM states that 89% and 75% of sprayers were compliant with testing requirements in 2017 and 2018, respectively.