Irish dairy farmers will enjoy a three-year extension to a derogation allowing them to spread higher levels of fertiliser on their land, despite water quality concerns, following a European Union vote on Tuesday.
The Government has spent months intensively lobbying officials in the European Commission, the union’s executive arm that proposes and enforces EU laws, for further leeway, to prolong an existing Irish derogation to nitrates rules.
The nitrates derogation, which allows 7,000 Irish dairy farmers to spread more fertiliser on their land than their European counterparts, had been due to expire at the end of this year. It also allows farmers availing of the derogation to keep more livestock per acre of land.
The nitrates directive, in force since 1991, aims to protect waterways and rivers from agricultural pollution and excess runoff. Successive governments have argued for the long-standing exemption to the EU law, on the basis Ireland’s pasture-based farming system has livestock graze outdoors for much of the year.
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The commission supported extending Ireland’s exemption to the EU’s nitrates law, subject to extra strings being attached around environmental standards. That extension was signed off by a unanimous vote of the EU’s 27 member states in Brussels on Tuesday.
Failing to negotiate a renewal to the nitrates derogation would have caused significant political backlash from farming organisations and communities, who view the exemption as crucial to Ireland’s system of dairy farming.
The commission sought assurances from the Irish Government that farmers availing of the derogation would comply with other EU habitat rules protecting nature sites, plants and species.
Nature conservation group An Taisce described the decision to extend the derogation as “shocking”.
The organisation, which has taken a challenge against Ireland’s nitrates plan to the European Court of Justice, said the State had “an abysmal track record of failure in protecting Irish waterways from agricultural pollution”.
Dr Elaine McGoff, head of advocacy at An Taisce, said the evidence clearly pointed to water pollution being a “serious problem” that was not helped by agricultural nitrogen in lakes and rivers.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, which represents dairy farmers, welcomed the continued recognition of Ireland’s “unique grass-based system”.
Denis Drennan, president of the farming association, said additional obligations put on farmers to protect natural habitats must be fair and reasonable.
The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) said obtaining the extension was a “relief” but said a longer-term solution was needed.
The association also expressed concern at some of the conditions attached to the extension, in particular the requirement for ‘appropriate assessments’ – an evaluation of environmental impacts under the Habitats Directive.
“How the appropriate assessment process will be applied is very much an unknown and is a potentially serious concern for farmers,” said IFA dairy chair Martin McElearney.
“It brings a new challenge for the sector.”
In a statement, Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon said the commission had sought assurances around Ireland’s implementation of the EU habitats directive during the derogation negotiations.
“This is a significant body of work, something we had to commit to as part of securing a derogation and I have consistently identified the need for time and space to ensure a thorough, comprehensive approach to this task,” he said.
Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Cowen, a former agriculture minister, said securing the extension had been “far from a foregone conclusion” and a result of Irish farmers’ willingness to adopt better practices.
European environment commissioner Jessika Roswall said Ireland had taken “meaningful steps to strengthen water protection”, and that as a result the EU body had given a thumbs up to the extension.
Ireland and the Netherlands are the only remaining EU states granted a derogation to the nitrate rules, with current exemption due to expire at the end of this year.
Recent testing for nitrates in Ireland has shown promising reductions in some water bodies; however, overall the Environmental Protection Agency has found water quality in rivers and lakes is getting worse, in a large part due to the agriculture sector.
The Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) said instead of giving farmers three years to meet the conditions of the exemption, that time should have been used to ease them off the exemption, backed by State financial support.
“Setting three years to meet many of the conditions means that water quality will continue to deteriorate in the meantime and so force farmers into the likelihood of a sudden and difficult adjustment down the line,” said SWAN chief executive Sinéad O’Brien.
