Securing certainty

News came in just as were about to sign off for press that that the European Commission had proposed a three-year extension to Ireland’s nitrates derogation, subject to certain conditionality. And we will know very soon (December 9) if the Member States are going to support such an extension. We truly hope that they do. While the implications of any further reduction would be calamitous for those directly affected, a negative outcome would have impacts for our entire farm sector. The recent visit by European Commissioner for the Environment, Jessika Roswall at the request of Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, we hoped, would bode well. While here, efforts were made to facilitate her seeing – firsthand – farming in Ireland. She visited a Kildare farm where she learned about water-quality improvement actions being delivered under the Nitrates Action Programme, participation in the European Innovation Partnership Farming for Water, the use of low emission slurry spreading equipment, and the incorporation of clover at farm level. That particular farm is also a participant in the AgNav programme, measuring and monitoring its carbon footprint closely. It was the cream of the crop but it highlighted the standards that are possible here and that most farmers are striving to achieve. Hopefully that made a good impression and an imprint on the commissioner’s mind!
It is understood that one of the conditionality elements of the new three-year extended derogation will involve conducting environmental assessments at catchment level to demonstrate compliance with the Habitats Directive. This is a massive undertaking, and according to Minister Heydon, it will require a significant investment of time and resources to complete. But, it is one of the main conditions upon which the Commission offers this three-year extension, and choice is a luxury we are running out of! Despite the controversy around that directive, it seems now to be the one thing that the derogation hinges on. Minister Heydon issued a call to action to all stakeholders on the back of the Commission’s end-of-November announcement to ‘re-double their efforts to take the right action in the right place’. “We must maintain the momentum of action now to ensure that we see continuous improvements in the data for agriculture-related water quality.” he said.
Twenty-five years ago, who would have predicted that a major focus for Irish agriculture would be on stocking rates and nitrogen inputs. We believed we had an irrefutably positive grass-based production model for milk, beef and sheep. And, we have. The difficulty has been in persuading regulators and other interested parties of its validity. That difficulty is growing bigger and bigger by the day.