It will cost Irish farmers over €1 billion to comply with the EU nitrates directive which will limit the amount of fertilisers farmers will be allowed use on their land, the IFA has claimed.
The Irish Farmers Association president, Mr John Dillon, said yesterday that the preliminary costings to implement the directive were obtained from independent consultants it had asked to examine the difficulties in complying with the regulations. The 85,000 strong organisation is to mount a major lobby of TDs and Senators opposing the limitations laid down in the directive next Tuesday.
Under the terms of the directive, which Brussels has been attempting to impose on Ireland since 1991 to protect water quality and the environment, farmers will have to limit the amount of nitrates they spread on land to 170 kg to the hectare. This would also mean limiting the number of animals that would be allowed graze on land to 0.8 dairy cows per acre. Intensive dairy farmers would be forced to store manure for long periods to comply with the regulations necessitating the building of slurry pits.
"IFA's consultants have already ascertained that 40,000 commercial farmers including dairy farmers and larger beef farmers could be saddled with costs running to over half a billion euro, while a further 100,000 less intensive farmers would have to carry a similar burden between them," said Mr Dillon.
"The draft action programme is unnecessary, unworkable and unaffordable. The Government has failed totally to justify on a scientific basis the draconian measures being put forward."He accused the Departments of Environment and Agriculture of failing to quantify, or take into account, the knock-on costs to farmers who will be faced with impossible financial burdens with no returns on the investment required.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association is also opposing the imposition of the directive.
The Government has set March 19th as the deadline for submitting its proposals on the implementation of the directive to Brussels and is currently conducting a consultation process through the Department of the Environment which will make its case to Brussels.
An inter-Departmental report on the directive has indicated that the State should be treated as one region for the implementation of the directive. The farm organisations had argued that stocking and spreading rates should be higher in areas where the soils could absorb more nitrates.