Sir, - It is sad that the most common piece of agricultural equipment seen during the recent farmers' protests over the proposed CAP reforms was the slurry spreader. The last CAP agreement, whereby Irish agriculture was forced into the cycle of intensive grassland management, was the greatest single factor in the decline of the Irish rural environment and its waterways. Irish farmers have among their numbers the very best of environmental guardians. However, the system forced them into a pattern of excessive fertiliser use, silage cutting and slurry spreading, with no regard to the local environment.
Consequently, even farmers on islands within Lough Corrib were forced to spread slurry almost to the very shores of the lake. Intensification of this process means we now have 8 million cattle in the country. Their effluent is spread untreated on the grasslands of the countryside. The effects of these practices result in destruction of wild bird nests (corncrake and partridge) and pollution of every major waterway in the State.
This situation is even more ridiculous when one considers the economic fact that the subsidised industry is not viable without the subsidy. Its activities however, are destroying the shopfront of our tourist industry which earns real, non-subsidised income for the country. Rural Ireland needs subsidised support, but this mad agrieconomic system needs to be disassembled and a more environmentally sympathetic system installed in its place.
The new system must take account of regional environmental sensitivities if our magnificent freshwater resources are to be preserved. One hopes that these circumstances will have some impact on those negotiating CAP reform in the coming days. - Yours, etc., Denis Quill, MCh.,
FRCSI, Flood Street, Galway.