Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 September 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food

Nitrates Derogation: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

2:00 am

Mr. Bill Callanan:

I will attempt to explain. About ten years ago, I visited a plant in Holland where slurries were going in the front end and were divided into three components. One was a solid fraction that was going into an anaerobic digestion plant. The second was the liquid fraction which was then going through a process called reverse osmosis to take the nitrates out of it, creating a liquid that was a fertiliser. The third component was water. The water was basically allowed back into the streams and ditches. RENURE facilitates that conversion of organic manure into a processed fertiliser. It will not be counted against the 170 kg N/ha.