Richard Blennerhassett is a recently retired dairy farmer living near Crecora, Co Limerick. He had a cross-compliance inspection in the first week of December and explained what had happened on the day of the inspection and what the inspector from the Department of Agriculture had been looking for.

“I didn’t get a warning and I wasn’t at home when he was outside the gate. He rang me wanting to get in, so I breezed him off until the following morning and he came at 9 o’clock,” Richard said.

“First of all he measured all the slurry tanks - the width, the length and the depth - to see if they had enough capacity for all my stock.”

“He took out 45 cattle and read their ear tags, checked all their cards and to see that I had enough cards for the remainder of the animals.

“He walked the farm and inspected it to see if I’d any poaching or any hedges removed, had I all the water courses fenced off, and went through all my paperwork.”

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The whole process took Richard the best part of a day, though the inspector told him that on some farms it can take up to two days.

“He signed all the Bord Bia books, which I was surprised with. Now he’s looking for 2016 feed dockets and 2017 fertiliser dockets and he wants a nitrates plan done. Even though I have one done for GLAS, he won’t accept that one.”

Given that the Christmas period is approaching, the inspector has given Richard until 1 March to have all the requested paperwork in order. The inspector will return on that date.

Dairy farmers ‘targetted’

As reported in the Irish Farmers Journal, almost 60% of farmers fell foul of one or more cross-compliance rules in 2016. More than half of those 2,533 farmers were forced to pay a penalty from their BPS.

Richard told the Irish Farmers Journal: “I’ve had numerous REPS and area aid, but I’ve never had a cross-compliance.”

“He said that they were after dairy farmers at the moment and I was pulled because I was a dairy farmer, but now being retired he still had to do the inspection.”

However, Richard said that the Department also seemed to be targeting beef farmers, as a neighbouring beef farmer had recently had an inspection.

Richard believes if he had still been a dairy farmer he may have been under more pressure to meet the criteria of the cross-compliance regulations.

“One thing he was very strict on was the spraying and the detergents and the medicines - he looked for receipts of the spraying and the course.

“He wanted the course number. I haven’t the course done, but my son has, so I had to give him that number.

“I think it was fair enough, I hope so anyway. He didn’t give me any real answer, so I’ll have to wait until 1 March.”

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