An assurance that there was enough land available in the State to accommodate the spreading of pig and poultry slurry under new EU farming environmental rules, was given to a Dáil committee yesterday.
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture was told by John Sadlier, principal officer at the Department of the Environment, that the livelihoods of pig and poultry farmers would not be endangered.
He had heard complaints from a number of members of the committee that the strict new guidelines of the EU nitrates directive would mean some pig and poultry farmers would go out of business.
Fine Gael TD Seymour Crawford said many of the pig and poultry operators in his Cavan-Monaghan constituency did not have the amount of land available which would accommodate the amount of fertiliser they produced.
His understanding was that the practice of bringing the fertiliser to grassland farmers in other parts of the country would be severely curtailed or stopped, and if that happened these farmers would go out of business.
Mr Sadlier said the departments of Agriculture and Environment were confident the spreading of pig manure would continue and there was enough land for it.
However, he said pig farmers would have to ensure the standard of fertiliser they were passing on to farmers in terms of its consistency.
"The importance of pig manure as a fertiliser is to be promoted by the Department of Agriculture and Food and I believe there is a role here for the farming organisations that they help their colleagues in the pig and poultry business to find outlets for the fertiliser," Mr Sadlier said.
Michael O'Donovan, of the Department of Agriculture, said the EU nitrates directive would mean changes but farmers could continue to spread pig slurry if they notified the department.
Mr Sadlier said he expected the regulations for nitrates to be become law on January 1st next.