Farm View: The Commission needs to be careful what it wishes for on nitrates
Farmers driving in convoy protesting changes to Ireland’s nitrates derogation at Cork Airport in 2024.
Brussels must tread carefully: ending the nitrates derogation could undo years of progress.
For the last two years in particular, Irish farmers have put their shoulders to the wheel, united behind one common goal: improving water quality.
That alignment - rare in any sector - has delivered measurable gains. But it has been driven by a clear, shared incentive: the nitrates derogation. Remove that, and you remove the very structure that has encouraged collaboration and investment in change, and immediately quash a huge amount of environmental goodwill and cooperation from farmers.
In making this decision, the Commission must weigh up the immediate environmental wins and reduced bureaucracy against the loss of farmer buy-in and the economic trauma that could push systems indoors or out of business - both worse outcomes for the environment and rural communities.
The nitrates derogation permits stocking and organic N limits above the standard 170 kg N/ha ceiling - in practice allowing up to 220–250 kg N/ha on qualifying land under strict conditions. Around 7,600 farms currently operate under the derogation, with recent modelling suggesting those farms would face an average 39% fall in family farm income if their stocking rate was forced back to 170 kg N/ha.
Extending the derogation with tighter conditions gives the Commission continued leverage - the proverbial Sword of Damocles - while keeping farmers motivated to do more. Remove it entirely, and that incentive disappears. The message becomes: “We’ve done all we can, and it wasn’t enough.” At that point, any environmental cooperation will be much harder to rebuild.
There are already real signs that farmers across the island are frustrated and mobilising in response to the threat of losing or having the nitrates derogation reduced.Â
The turnout this week in Fermoy - where 1,000 farmers attended a nitrates meeting with Agriculture Minister Martin Heydon at Corrin Mart, making clear the devastation their businesses would endure in the face of losing the derogation - should leave no doubt just how concerned farmers are about the outcome.
Families have made major business investments and taken out loans worth hundreds of thousands, secured on the back of operating at the level allowed by the derogation. For them, there is no Plan B.Â
Even emotional arguments aside, it must be remembered that farmers under the derogation already meet higher compliance standards than many non-derogation farms. You don’t strengthen sustainability by forcing efficient operators out and rewarding inefficiency.
It also undermines the success of initiatives like the Farming for Water EIP and ASSAP advisory programme, which have engaged thousands of farmers and directed tens of millions of euro into on-farm water improvements.
Researchers warn it can take between five and 10 years for on-farm efforts to show through in water quality data, meaning that for much of this work, there has been nowhere near enough time for the fruits of that labour to appear.
On that basis, it sends a bad message that, rather than holding the few bad actors accountable, the Commission is instead punishing 7,600 family farms that have spent tens of millions on buffer strips, low-emission slurry spreading, and nutrient management.
The next week will be critical in deciding the way forward for Irish dairy, but Brussels must be careful that, in trying to punish a few laggards, it doesn’t alienate the thousands who’ve been doing all they can to improve water quality.
After all, it cannot reach environmental targets against the very people it needs to deliver them. The Commission will need to reach them by working with farmers, not by driving them off the land.
