The long-awaited publication of the economic impact report associated with the nitrates derogation was published this week.
The message is loud and clear: those farmers in derogation need an additional 112,000 hectares if the derogation is lost.
The only other option is to reduce milking cow numbers by over 200,000 cows.
How this plays out in practice will of course be very different – tillage, beef and sheep farmers will lose rented land.
Some dairy farmers will have to reduce cow numbers making them unviable, and some will get costly leased land lowering profits.
As Aidan Brennan details on page 8, it looks very likely that the Department is going to impose new rules for slurry distribution for higher stocked farms.
Clearly this is going to add additional complication and cost. Hopefully not another environmental investment by farmers that will go unrecognised.
Industry impact
Not considered in this analysis is the wider impact of a dairy herd reduction on the Irish agri-food sector.
A smaller national milk pool would lead to underutilisation of processing capacity, which would increase processing costs that would inevitably be paid for by farmers.
Furthermore, a reduction in dairy cow numbers would decrease the supply of dairy-bred calves, lowering beef production and increasing meat processing costs.
SHARING OPTIONS