Stephen Cadogan: Irish farmers not to blame for EU’s damaged environment
The 28 country reports in the recently published EU’s Environmental Implementation Review show that fewer countries have a better record.
It doesn’t happen by accident. Up to 2,000 herd owners here have been penalised per year, for breaching nitrates limits, not to mention the many environmental sanctions in other schemes.
For example, a farmer found to have exceeded nitrogen from livestock in 2015 by 4kg over the limit of 170 kg/hectare lost 45% of the farm’s 2016 direct schemes payments, because similar breaches had been identified in the previous three years.
It’s a heavy penalty, considering the average farm gets about €11,000 in direct schemes payments.
But when Irish farmers travel in other member states, they are surprised to find environmental damage from agriculture at high levels.
They find large parts of the Baltic Sea are eutrophic, mostly due to nutrients from farms killing sea life, due to lack of oxygen when nutrients decompose. Much of it came from Denmark.
According to the EU’s Environmental Implementation Review, agriculture remains the largest diffuse pollution contributor to coastal water in Denmark.
Denmark is also one of the countries reporting the most unfavourable habitat assessments, with agriculture and pollution the most frequently reported pressures.
Poland’s contribution to the nitrates in the Baltic Sea is also significant, and much of it comes from agriculture.
Many Irish visitors have been surprised to find nitrates in groundwater in intensive German farming areas exceed levels permitted by the EU. Organic farmers in these areas who irrigate are unknowingly spreading nitrates on their crops.
Unlike the Irish system, the nitrates directive in Germany has been mostly managed at federal level, with limited results, especially for high livestock density areas, which have continued to show increasing pollution trends.
According to the EU’s Environmental Implementation Review, control measures have not been effective, partly due to difficulty for authorities in accessing agricultural data, because of legal barriers.
In Germany, farmers also benefit from various exemptions from many nature protection regulations.
In Belgium, Irish visitors have remarked on the absence of wildlife. Meanwhile, agricultural pressures on water in Flanders remains high, with eutrophication affecting most surface waters.
Even in Cyprus, 25% of monitoring water sites had nitrates above 25mg/l in the 2008-2011 period, attributed mainly to agriculture.
Water resources in the Czech Republic are “exposed to considerable pressure”, due to agriculture. And Finland is under pressure from the EU to address diffuse pollution from agriculture, mainly phosphates.
In France, the EU says agri-intensification has significantly damaged habitats and species. However, recent environmental initiatives set new targets. Diffuse pollution from agriculture is the most significant pressure on 39% of French water bodies, causing eutrophication, and higher water treatment costs.
In 2013, pesticides were found in 92% of monitoring points of surface water bodies.
Hungary’s shallow sub-surface water sources are often polluted, especially from agricultural sources.
Eutrophication crops up again in the Adriatic Sea. The EU says better nitrates directive implementation in Italy would address it. Groundwater and surface water pollution is also a major challenge in Italy, blamed on wastewater, agriculture, and in particular, spreading of digestate from biogas plants in intensive livestock areas.
Diffuse pollution, mainly from agriculture, affects 26% of water bodies in Lithuania.
Tackling water quality, notably agricultural nitrates pollution, is one of three main environmental challenges the EU sets for the UK. The UK has indicated phosphorus from agriculture needs to reduce by 28-43% to meet revised standards in their river basin management plans.
