Irish beef for China: We need a sustainable farming plan

Last month, Agriculture Minister Michael Creed celebrated the latest in a long line of derogations from the EU Nitrates Directive. This allows at least 7,000 farmers to have higher stocking rates than those stipulated by the directive. Regulations to protect the environment and encourage good animal husbandry are only for other Europeans, it seems. Unlike their Dutch peers, our farmers will not be told to reduce herd numbers if they have a negative impact on water resources.

No matter how the farm lobby argues, the derogation will exacerbate the destruction of water resources, a ransacking recorded with ever-deepening despair in one Environmental Protection Agency report after another. This evasion is a primary driver of the fodder crisis. Strangely, and in an unusual recourse to socialist values, the farm lobby argues that the taxpayer must resolve this difficulty.