The chair of Carbery has vowed to fight on his back to retain Ireland’s nitrates derogation.
Johnny O’Brien said that the derogation must be retained, “because we have to retain as many family farms as we can going forward on a grass-based system,” he told Dairy Day 2026.
“From a derogation perspective where I come from, our co-operative model in west Cork is based on the family farm system, it’s 80, 90 or 100 cows.
"If we see any change from 220 [kg of per hectare], I hate being dismal here, but it will be catastrophic, because it would really kill the family farm model."
He said that the drought of 2018 was interesting and that farmers took a lot of learnings from the impact of it inside the farm gate.
Shortage
“The extra use of N that time was based on advice because of the fodder shortage. Fertiliser was spread, in my opinion, too late, which added to the problem.
“Since 2018, the amount of learnings we’ve had as farmers was phenomenal. The overall trend in N efficiency is improving dramatically.
“The trend in water quality is exponentially improving. We’re seeing fertiliser sales down 25% because of the factors associated with nitrates directive and because people are realising that more prudent use of fertiliser and slurries throughout the year is mitigating waste and better efficiencies around nitrogen,” he said.
