With three weeks left in the public consultation period on the proposed changes to Ireland’s Nitrates Action Programme, the Irish Farmers Journal is holding a free webinar to answer readers’ queries on the proposed changes.

The live webinar begins at 8pm on Monday 30 August and is free to watch on www.ifj.ie/nitrates with no registration necessary.

A key point is that the measures proposed affect all farmers, not just those farming in a derogation. In fact, there are no extra measures being imposed on farmers in a derogation, compared to all other farmers.

The main talking points to date has been around the proposals to increase the storage requirements for soiled water and introduce a period where the spreading of soiled water is banned.

Other measures include the requirement that all new and existing external slurry stores need to be covered and all slurry on farms stocked more than 100kgN/ha needs to be spread using low emission equipment.

It is also proposed that all slurry should be applied before 15 September from 2023 onwards. New bands for organic nitrogen for dairy cows will mean higher yielding cows will have a higher organic nitrogen excretion rate.

The panel for the webinar includes Jack Kennedy, Adam Woods and Aidan Brennan from the Irish Farmers Journal livestock team.