Tipperary farmer wants Department to ‘spell out plainly’ how 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 the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, Eamon Carroll said that the ICMSA has asked the Department to spell out clearly how this system is going to work, how complex will it be for farmers and who will pay the cost of it?

The proposal has been announced by the Department as a measure to deliver water quality improvements. 

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, a well-known Templemore farmer.

READ NEXT: Meeting to be held next week around significant Tipperary infestation issue

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 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.

READ NEXT: Tipperary Council says it can't stop serial objections to farm building projects