Good guys and bad guys
If the IFA decide to lift their boycott of Teagasc anytime in the next 12 months, it will be thanks to the straight talking of their most knowledgeable experts.
These public servants have lived up to their name, shedding the only bit of light for farmers on the Nitrates Directive, giving out real information instead of the baseless reassurances from the Ministers for the Environment and Agriculture that everything will be fine.
On the very informative RTE Prime Time TV programme, Dr Pat Dillon, the Head of Dairy and Pig Production Research at Teagasc's Moorepark Centre made it clear he believes the nitrates legislation signed into law by Environment Minister Dick Roche is an overkill compared to our water quality requirements.
Teagasc Director of Agricultural Research Dr Seamus Crosse said last week the Directive presents major problems for the Irish pig industry.
Addressing the Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Local Government, he said this is the general Teagasc view, and that Teagasc would be happy to submit information on phosphorous which might be used to make the Directive manageable for pig farmers.
He said also that farmers throughout the country are concerned about the legislation on nitrogen, and how they will manage to operate with low levels of nitrogen, and said Teagasc would be happy to also review the permitted nitrogen levels, if the Environment Minister asked them to do so.
This week, another Teagasc specialist spelled out why dairy farmers on wet soils will not be able to feed their cows without exceeding the nitrogen allowed by the Directive.
The evidence is clear from the country’s foremost agricultural scientists that the Nitrates Directive poses major problems for farmers.
In return, all that Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan can offer is a promise that farmers will not be forced out of business, left, right and centre, or forced to operate at uneconomic levels of fertilisation.
They would not be hounded under the Single Payment Scheme, or tormented with extra inspections, she said, during last week’s Dail debate on Fine Gael’s “Future of Irish Farming” motion.
But farmers know to their cost that heavy handed Government officials can literally find them guilty until proven innocent.
Farmers like Co Tipperary pig farmer Tom Hanrahan (a former senior Teagasc researcher), described well the threat of officialdom hanging over farmers, in his recent submissions to Oireachtas committees.
He told of a legal case involving the Department of Agriculture and Food and a haulier from the midlands, who had one of the best trucks in the country.
The haulier was transporting cattle from Co Kerry through to Co Carlow, and a cow died.
Twenty departmental inspectors opposed him in the case, and his costs per day to pay them were more than €5,000.
Mr Hanrahan said the Department was defeated in a separate West Cork District Court case, appealed the decision, but was defeated again, and took the issue to the Circuit Court and was defeated once more.
In a recent District Court case, it was heard that investigators climbed through an open window in a veterinarian’s business to seize products; charges against the veterinarian were dismissed in the case.
No wonder farmers live in terror of Department of Agriculture special investigators.
They won’t expect any better treatment at the hands of the Department of the Environment or local authority officials who will police the Nitrates Directive, which provides for fines of €3,000, plus €100 per day, or six months in jail.
Perhaps the most widespread fear in farming is of losing the Single Payment, which makes up most of a farmer’s income.
This can arise through a breach of the nitrates regulations, or one of the other 17 areas of statutory management requirements which accompany the Single Payment Scheme.
Minister Coughlan’s Dáil promises won’t be much use to farmers facing the loss of their livelihood.
