Mr. Noel Feeney:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for the invitation here today. I am president of the Agricultural Consultants Association, ACA, to my right is Breian Carroll, our general secretary and Tom Canning our national council representative for the nitrates regulation, and a former president of the ACA.

The Agricultural Consultants Association is the sole representative body for private agricultural consultants and advisers in Ireland. Currently, the ACA has in the region of 185 member offices in Ireland which employ in the region of 280 agricultural, environmental and forestry consultants, with a further 200-plus people employed as administration and technical staff. The ACA represents 90% of private agricultural consultants and advisers in Ireland. Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine statistics indicate that our members provide advisory support services to more than 55,000 farmers nationally.

With regard to the specific six questions the committee asked us to address on the derogation issue, the first question was on what are the anticipated economic effects for the agricultural sector that would result from a further decrease to the nitrates derogation and the second question was about what are the anticipated social effects for the agricultural sector that would result from a further decrease to the nitrates derogation. Both questions have been addressed in detail by some of the farm bodies in recent discussions with this committee. In the interest of time efficiency, we in the ACA agree with the information provided by these organisations on the effects at both farm level and on the industry nationally with the removal of derogations.

Despite the significant expansion in the dairy herd and the associated increase in milk production following the removal of milk quotas in 2015, Ireland has remained true to the traditional principles of Irish agriculture, namely, grass-based production and family farm units. It must be stressed that we do not have any factory farm dairy systems in Ireland. With the support of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF, dairy farmers have a better focus on better breeding strategies and produce cows with higher butterfat and protein yields, better health traits and improved longevity.

Irish dairy farmers have dramatically increased grass yields by embracing new management practices and technologies, such as the incorporation of clover in swards, more efficient use of slurry and effective nutrient management planning. All of this has been achieved with ever decreasing use of chemical fertilisers. The fact that the derogation in place currently for the Danes and the Dutch is to be phased out in the coming years is not a justification for removal of the nitrate derogation from Irish farmers.

The third question was whether it is possible to maintain Ireland’s nitrates derogation at its current level while ensuring that there are improvements to Ireland’s water quality. The ACA believes there is no one solution to improving water quality in Ireland. It will require all stakeholders with responsibility for water quality working together with a common goal to achieve the improvements required. While agriculture is seen as the most significant pressure, other sectors including industry, local authorities and domestic wastewaters are also affecting the quality of our waters.

Even if all farmers were to comply fully with all of the current regulations, scientific experts recognise that it could take up to ten years to see any significant improvements in water quality.

The fourth question was whether the nitrates action programme, NAP, is fit for purpose in protecting Ireland’s water quality. The ACA believes that the NAP has become too cumbersome and extremely difficult for any farmer to comply with and for our members to impart our knowledge and information to their farming clients. Farmers in derogation have to comply with 39 additional measures, in addition to the basic code of good farm practice regulations, which was introduced in 2024, following the review of the NAP in 2023. Some of the current regulations will have little or no impact on improving water quality in Ireland.

Minor administrative breaches of the derogation regulations today will result in rejection of the derogation application, exclusion from derogation for two years and significant cumulative penalties across all support payments. From an advisory perspective, simple errors in preparing derogation applications on behalf of our farmer clients can result in those clients being excluded from derogation for two years, thereby exposing our businesses and causing unnecessary stress for both our members and those farmer clients. The current derogation IT system needs a complete overhaul with dedicated funding to modernise it to ensure our members and farmers have trust in the system.

The agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme, ASSAP, needs to adapt urgently and embrace the ACA, our members and our farmer clients to assist in the programme at local level. Our association and members are available to bring all the latest information and research to our farmer clients, including derogation farmers, and we must be part of the solution on the ground.

The fifth question was whether additional supports are required to ensure farmers can be compliant with the nitrates action programme. The ACA states that there are additional supports to help derogation farmers to be compliant, including the following measures, namely, one, the fast-tracking of planning and the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, applications for slurry storage on farms; two, 70% support for investment in slurry storage facilities on farms, especially on outlying lands, to encourage better distribution of organic nutrients spread; three, removal of the exclusion clause of farmers who have a shortfall in slurry storage capacity from TAMS support; four, restoration of supports for low emissions slurry spreading equipment for all farmers; and five, a VAT reclaim facility on all investments that will contribute to environmental improvements.

Ever-changing regulations, loss of VAT rebate facilities, delays in support payments, planning and TAMS application delays, uncertain produce prices, increasing land rental and decrease in land supply have all contributed to the uncertainty among Irish farmers. Clarity and structured programmes are needed for our members in providing advice to our clients to enable them to make timely and detailed farm business decisions, which will also fit in with achieving our sectoral environmental targets.

Finally, the sixth question asked if additional resources are required to ensure the measures required by the nitrates action programme are adequately enforced. Farmers, in our view in the main, enjoy participating in targeted events with their peers, including training. Mandatory annual training for all farmers with a specific focus on improving water quality would act as a considerable help to farmers in dealing with current challenges. A resourced ACA office would work with State agencies and bodies to create consistent training and materials for members to impart to our farmers.

All ACA members must be regularly trained, as is available to those in the public advisory service annually. Furthermore, the tools that we use as advisers in the provision of services to derogation farmers, such as the nutrient management planning system, must be provided without direct cost to our members and farmer client, as it is in the best interest of the sector.

A higher number of inspections are scheduled for derogation farmers. It is critical that inspectors from the Department of agriculture and the local authority are consistent in their approach and that breaches of regulations are treated fairly and justly. A clear schedule of penalties must be applied, as currently they lack clarity and are not proportional to the breaches.

The ACA must be resourced to appoint a nitrates specialist within our network. With the ever-increasing pressure on advisers, such appointments would be of significant assistance in tailoring important information for our members to derogation farmers in our network from stakeholders such as the Department, Teagasc, the EPA, ASSAP, and other important actors. Similar appointments in the ACA network for other areas have been very successful in recent years, thanks to the support of the current Department of agriculture Ministers and their officials, and must be introduced to deal with all nitrates regulations and derogations.

I again thank the committee for the opportunity to present today.