ICMSA wants Dept to ‘spell out plainly’ how Nutrient Use Surplus proposal will address urgent questions

 Speaking after a meeting of the Agriculture Water Quality Group at which the Department put forward a proposal to implement a Nutrient Use Surplus concept for farmers under the Nitrates regulations, the Deputy President of ICMSA, Mr. Eamon Carroll said that has ICMSA asked the Department to spell out clearly how this system is (A) going to work (B) how complex will it be for farmers and (C) who will pay the cost of it.  Mr. Carroll said that those questions will have to be answered in the context where any proposals to deliver water quality improvements must allow farmers to farm at an economically sustainable level.

 The ICMSA Deputy President expressed deep concern that the Department’s proposal will merely function as another ‘box-ticking’ exercise that will place more requirements on farmers and cost them money to implement without making a positive contribution to water quality.  

“This is why ICMSA asked several questions at the meeting, and it is essential that the Department provides the requested detail so that informed decisions can be made on whether the system has merit or not. We can be very frank here: ICMSA will not support such a system if the Department cannot bring forward evidence of its effectiveness”, said Mr. Carroll.

The ICMSA Deputy President said that for too long, the Department has brought forward measure after measure, all placing more requirements on farmers without any evidence of fact-checking. He said that the situation is far too important for any more exercises in box-ticking that may or may not work and the Department owes farmers an explanation and justification for these kinds of proposal. 

“It’s unacceptable that the Department are holding up other measures that have already been agreed and would assist farmers by insisting now – at this late stage – that this measure is introduced or, failing that, that farmers would have to take another 5% reduction in chemical nitrogen”, said Mr. Carroll.

 Concluding, Mr. Carroll said that we cannot continue to load rules on farmers without giving them the necessary support to implement existing rules – including the better utilisation of Nutrient Management Plans. He said that introducing a Nutrient Use Surplus at this stage looks like reaching for another untried and untested tool without ever utilising the measures we already have.  He added that ICMSA fully supports measures that will improve water quality, but were adamant that they would not support measures that are unjustified while adding cost and more bureaucracy onto hard-pressed farmers.

“We desperately we need to get to a stage where the right measures are used in the right place at the right time. We keep going for this blanket approach based on restrictions and costs and so far from helping, it’s actually doing nothing for water quality but penalising farmers”, he concluded.

Ends       17 October 2024

Eamon Carroll, 087-6312945

Deputy President, ICMSA

Or

Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758

ICMSA Press Office