Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, is still advising farmers to apply more fertilisers to their land, despite warnings that this is causing serious environmental pollution.
The most recent issue of its Dairy Newsletter said: "We must give our paddocks every chance. A good starting point would be the application of nitrogen compound fertilisers" [containing phosphorous].
After recommending two proprietary brands, Pasture Sward and Leifi Start, the newsletter went on to say that phosphorous would "benefit the grass after the recent period of poor grazing conditions". In its July Cattle Newsletter, Teagasc advised that nitrogen was "the fuel . . . to get grass growing again" and suggested applying 30 units to grazing areas and 40 to 50 units on areas already cut for silage.
The two newsletters coincided with last month's publication of the Government's national sustainable development review, which blamed over-use of fertilisers for the eutrophication of rivers and lakes.
Calling this over-enrichment of waters Ireland's "most serious environmental pollution problem" - and despite water quality problems beginning to be reversed by intensive remedial action - it identified agriculture as the source of 73 per cent of phosphorous inputs and 82 per cent of nitrate inputs.
The review underlined the need to change agricultural practices after a period which had seen large increases in animal and farm productivity and intensification of agriculture.
This had coincided with large increases in the application of both nitrates and phosphates to soils in the form of slurry and fertilisers - notwithstanding confirmation that in many instances, areas had reached saturation levels of nitrogen and farmers were wasting large sums of money by applying fertiliser.
Mr Quentin Gargan, an organic farmer in west Cork, said he had "never seen" Teagasc putting its advice in the context of soil texts, nitrogen-vulnerable zones or any other environmental implications.
"[They] still advise us to apply more nitrogen, with a recent letter giving a blow-by-blow analysis of how much extra grass we will get, how many more cattle this will feed and how much more we can make."
In the July edition "we are urged to ensure a second cut of silage by applying 80 units of nitrogen now . . . without any reference to whether it is needed or whether we live on the shores of Lough Derg", he said.
At the same time, Teagasc was telling its first conference on organic farming that, at best, 5 per cent of Irish farmers could make a living from switching over to more environmentally friendly agriculture.
Mr Gargan also noted that the highlights on Teagasc's Dairy Newsletter for July referred to an item on organic milk, which did not appear.
"At least someone in there is trying," he commented.
