It’s law, bad science or not
He got the Nitrates Directive Regulations signed into law last Sunday and even got a scapegoat into the bargain for farmers to fight over this week.
Teagasc is in the spotlight over its scientific advice input into four years of preparing the Nitrates Regulations.
But it would be far better for farmers to stop crying over spilt milk, and give their full attention to how they will obey these regulations now signed into Irish law.
If EU budget negotiators tomorrow decide to scrap the Common Agricultural Policy in 10 years time, as proposed by the UK, it will be too late for farmers to object on Saturday.
And if the Word Trade Organisation on Sunday decides to throw world agricultural trading wide open, farmers complaints on Monday will count for little.
Likewise, it is too late for weeping and gnashing of teeth over nitrates (and phosphates) regulations which are now the law of the land.
Perhaps farmers should keep their heads down and stay quiet until the EU Nitrates Committee rules on Ireland’s proposal for a 250 kg of organic nitrogen per hectare per year derogation for animal manure, which is needed to keep our 10,000 most intensive dairy farmers and 6,000 farmers who take in pig slurry in business.
The reason for the Nitrates Directive is to protect waters against pollution from agricultural sources.
The laws which will start to come into effect on February 1 are actually called the European Communities (Good Agricultural Practice for Protection of Waters) Regulations 2005, and Irish farmers must now get serious about protection of waters.
But if they are protesting that the Directive as it is now enacted in Ireland is based on bad science, the EU Nitrates Committee could not be blamed for thinking twice about whether they deserve a derogation.
A willingness to toe the line and obey the law would work better for farmers now.
The Nitrates Directive is here to stay.
It won’t be easy to comply with.
Pig farmers are the most vulnerable. But a 22-month transitional period is being allowed for pig farms licensed by the EPA. They have been given up to October 2007 to adapt to the new regulations.
But if they in the meantime can’t get many extra farmers to take their slurry, they will go out of business.
That is far from an impossible target. On their side is a promised campaign from the Department of Agriculture to find farmers to take the slurry, and grant aid of up to 70% of investments by all farmers to meet the terms of the Directive, with €48 million of that grant aid already provided to cover next year.
A huge amount of research funding is promised to find ways for farmers to stay within the Nitrates Regulations.
A number of other concessions were agreed at the last moment, and the daily fine for continuing breaches of the Nitrates Directive Regulations has been reduced from €1,000 to €100.
