There is still uncertainty for many nitrates derogation farmers as to whether they will face a reduction in their maximum stocking rate from January 2024.

Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue stated that he is working to bring clarity to the red map published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the end of this month.

The Department of Agriculture is also still unsure of how many farmers are stocked between 220kg organic N/ha and 250kg N/ha out of the 7,300 farmers who applied for a derogation in 2023.

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The map details the areas which did not pass the criteria needed to stay at 250kg N/ha, marking these as ‘red zones’ where affected farmers will have to cut numbers, find additional land or export slurry from 2024.

Impacted farmers have just over three months to comply with the new stocking rates.

However, the map is not currently available to view on a farm-by-farm or a field-by-field basis, which would allow individual farmers to know exactly where they stand.

Minister McConalogue told the joint Oireachtas committee on agriculture last Friday that “very minor adjustments to the map may be possible” but suggested that the number of farmers who will change from being in a red zone to a white one will be small.

He claimed that “farmers were very much aware of the fact that there was a very strong risk of dropping” since the current derogation was negotiated in 2022.

The minister said that it is expected that between “3,000 and 4,000 farmers” will fall into this stocking rate category, but clarity has yet to emerge on how many of these farms fall into the ‘red zones’.