Farmers must register with National Fertiliser Database
The database has been developed with the aim of recording fertiliser sales along the supply chain; and achieving better compliance with water quality and environmental ambitions.
The National Fertiliser Database is now live and open for registration.
The database has been developed with the aim of recording fertiliser sales along the supply chain, and achieving better compliance with water quality and environmental ambitions.
From September 1, anyone wishing to sell or purchase fertiliser, including lime, must be registered.
Farmers must register as professional fertiliser end users, while importers and merchants must register as fertiliser economic operators.
Registration can be done using agfood.ie.
Also from September 1, all fertiliser transactions along the supply chain must be recorded.
This includes fertiliser dispatched from merchants’ premises to farms, moving from farm to farm, or imported.
Merchants can enter this data manually through the Department of Agriculture's digital online service agfood.ie or through an application programming interface that facilitates the automatic upload of data from retailers’ IT systems directly to the National Fertiliser Database.
Commenting on the launch of the database, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said that its rollout is an "important milestone".
"The database will require very little additional work for most farmers and will provide a number of benefits," Mr McConalogue said.
"Over the coming weeks, my department will write to all farmers about the new requirements and officials will also have a stand at the National Ploughing Championships where individual queries will be answered and assistance with registration will be provided."
