Watch the poisonous weeds
The weeds have to be attended to; never mind that farmers don’t know what crops they can grow between the weeds, or if they will have any cattle in danger of poisoning by eating ragwort.
It looks like some of them will have to get rid of up to half of the cattle. How many have to go depends on the interpretation of the 12,577 word Nitrates Regulations enacted last month.
It was some useful advice on how these regulations affect day-to-day farming operations which any farmer with livestock was waiting for from the Department’s Kildare House HQ, not the annual reminder on weeds.
Beet growers were waiting too, for clues needed to decide what to do with their 90,000 acres which, up to this year, produced 1.6 million tonnes of beet for sugar processing.
They need Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan’s guidance on the economics of the reduced beet price, the restructuring levy, decoupled payment, regional development fund, reference years, etc. She said she was waiting for legal texts from Brussels, and beet growers are left guessing, just as livestock farmers are left guessing how the “European Communities (Good Agricultural Practice for Protection of Waters) Regulations 2005” will affect them. (To add to confusion, the Department of the Environment dreamed up this new name at the last moment for the Nitrates Directive which has been in farmers’ nightmares since 2002).
The Directive was agreed in Brussels in 1991, and it was three years ago before the EU started twisting Ireland’s arm to enforce it properly. Then, the warnings began that parts of Ireland would be classified as Nitrates Vulnerable, requiring major reduction of livestock numbers on well stocked farms.
It was feared nearly four out of every 10 dairy farms would have to remove some or all of their ‘non-dairy cattle’.
Farms not complying with the initially expected upper limit of 210kg per hectare per year of organic nitrogen were predicted to lose more than 20% of their incomes. It was thought that dairy farmers would require an additional 20% of acreage to maintain existing herd sizes.
The predictions got even more gloomy when it was revealed the EU required an upper limit of 170kg per hectare.
Pig and poultry farmers realised their livelihoods were seriously threatened.
As the Directive loomed bigger and bigger in farmers’ minds, they couldn’t be blamed for sinking into a fog of indecision, with fear of the unknown looming large, and some wondering - with good cause - if it was all a plot to reduce Ireland’s share of greenhouse gas emissions coming from farm animals.
Certainly, it was a bad climate for making the big decisions required for farming progress. Those who took a chance and made big investments got a rude awakening just before Christmas, when the regulations were enacted, and they turned out to be even worse than was feared.
It is slowly becoming clear to them that not just nitrates, but phosphorous too, are strictly controlled.
For example, a farmer with 40 cows and 200 sows is being told he can now keep only 20 sows, or must get three times more land than he has, to continue his current level of activity.
He has some worrying decisions to make - but not yet.
After up to three years of waiting for the rules, he must wait again, to see if Ireland gets a derogation allowing up to 250kg per hectare of organic nitrogen.
The derogation was applied for in late December; it may be June before the decision is finalised.
And the situation still will not be clarified, now that Teagasc have announced they will explore, with the Department of Agriculture and Food and the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the possibility of a similar derogation for phosphorus.
So the rules which govern crop growing and livestock husbandry in Ireland are no clearer than ever, three years of uncertainty for up to 136,000 farmers is on the way to becoming four.
And there are still precious few clues from the Minister and her two junior Ministers, and their staff of about 4,500.
Already shackled by the price-cost squeeze, by milk quotas, by high land values, environmental clampdowns, red tape, and with CAP reform and WTO changing the goalposts every year, farmers need guidance.
They wouldn’t ask Minister Coughlan to predict the future; but they would welcome straight talking to help them plan what they will do for the year ahead.
