Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 14 September 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Nitrates Action Programme: Discussion

Mr. Tim Cullinan:

We are moving in the wrong direction there. We are very clear there is no need for covering outdoor storage tanks.

Another issue is the compulsory use of low-emission slurry spreading on farms above 100 kg organic nitrogen. We cannot see the benefit in that. The data equipment has been grant-aided through the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS. We all know that if it becomes a legal requirement, it will not be grant-aided. If there is going to be change here, there must be proper grant aid for those measures.

The proposal on slurry closing dates makes no sense, good bad or indifferent. Farmers are grazing their paddocks up to mid-October. At the moment, chemical fertiliser application finishes on 15 September. Farmers have a valuable resource in organic fertiliser. As the Chairman would know himself, if a farmer is to apply organic fertiliser to his paddocks when he is finishing his last round of grazing up to mid-October - we have looked at this - at least 30% more grass will be available for the first round of grazing in the spring without using any chemical nitrogen. It decreases costs coming into the farm and decreases imports into the country. Can anybody explain to me the logic in preventing farmers from using a valuable resource that is readily available on their farms and that they can apply after the last round of grazing? That is essential. This is a red line issue for us.

I understand the Department is looking at the technical tables in the nitrates directive. That is very concerning for us. For any of this process to move forward, we need proper negotiations with the Department, not what we have seen over the past while, namely, putting out consultations without negotiations.

This is not the way we work. As farmers, we are partners in the review and we want to be around the table and negotiating how this is going to go forward and the impact it is going to have on the sector. I ask you, as Chairman of the committee, to bring the findings that will come out of today's meeting directly to the Minister. We spoke to the Minister on this last week. We need cool heads on this now and we need to get a practical solution so that farmers can continue to farm in a very efficient and environmentally-friendly manner.

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