Professor Frank O'Mara, director of Teagasc, Bridget Lynch, Agricultural Catchments Programme, Teagasc and Caitríona Morrissey, deputy editor, Irish Farmers Journal at the Catchment Science 2023 conference. \ Patrick Browne
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The next phase of the Agricultural Catchments Programme (ACP) is currently under discussion between Teagasc and the Department of Agriculture.
The ACP’s first four phases have been used by the Department to monitor the effectiveness of Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) measures since 2008, while water catchment monitoring is also required by Brussels to support Ireland’s nitrates derogation.
Professor Frank O’Mara said that the new phase is expected to widen the ACP’s mission, by evaluating mitigation actions at a local scale and reporting on the most promising strategies to reduce nutrient loss to water.
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These mitigation actions will potentially feed into Ireland’s sixth Nitrate Action Programme and future nitrates derogation reviews.
It’s understood these actions could include engineered nature-based solutions, catch crops and the use of plantain to mitigate nitrogen leaching.
“The mitigation strategies will be technologies for the future and those that are farm-ready,” Prof O’Mara told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“We will look at them at a localised scale and model it up to catchment scale so that we can continue to evaluate and report on current regulation as we have from the beginning of the programme.”
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The next phase of the Agricultural Catchments Programme (ACP) is currently under discussion between Teagasc and the Department of Agriculture.
The ACP’s first four phases have been used by the Department to monitor the effectiveness of Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) measures since 2008, while water catchment monitoring is also required by Brussels to support Ireland’s nitrates derogation.
Professor Frank O’Mara said that the new phase is expected to widen the ACP’s mission, by evaluating mitigation actions at a local scale and reporting on the most promising strategies to reduce nutrient loss to water.
These mitigation actions will potentially feed into Ireland’s sixth Nitrate Action Programme and future nitrates derogation reviews.
It’s understood these actions could include engineered nature-based solutions, catch crops and the use of plantain to mitigate nitrogen leaching.
“The mitigation strategies will be technologies for the future and those that are farm-ready,” Prof O’Mara told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“We will look at them at a localised scale and model it up to catchment scale so that we can continue to evaluate and report on current regulation as we have from the beginning of the programme.”
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