'Accurate and local' advice vital for farmers to improve water quality - Teagasc

It is vital when engaging with farmers to provide them with accurate and local advice that's going to be valuable for improving water quality, Blackwater catchement co-ordinator Philip Murphy from Teagasc has said.

Speaking about the Better Farming for Water campaign on Teagasc's Friday morning Signpost webinar, Murphy said that having accurate knowledge of key issues in individual waterbodies allows stakeholders to provide tailor-made actions for change on the ground.

The Teagasc Better Farming for Water campaign focuses on eight actions for change. These actions include reducing purchased nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) surplus per hectare; ensuring soil fertility is optimal for lime, phosphorus and potassium; ensuring application of fertiliser and organic manure at appropriate times and conditions; and having sufficient slurry and soiled water storage capacity.

Issues

One of the most important things in order to get key messages to farmers on the ground is to know what the significant issue in a river is, Murphy told the webinar.

"It's the bridging point between catchment assessment and a farm level measure," he said.

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Farm and Landscape Measures for Agriculture (FLAG) map assigns individual water bodies with most likely pollutants. The tool essentially helps farmers learn about local water quality and shows what agricultural issues are impacting waterbodies.

"The areas for action will change to an extent but they are still dealing with specific issues usually. The nitrate may be elevated in any particular waterbody but the status may not be affected. You won't find direct impacts of elevated nitrogen in a river but it's at the estuary downstream where the impacts are identified. What that means is that you could have a river that doesn't have an ecological impact but it still may have an agricultural pressure on it," Murphy explained.

This, he said, is often complicated further by different pressures acting on a water body. The 'at risk' water bodies will have multiple pressures on them, with agriculture being one of them.