IFA president, Pádraig Walshe, has engaged in damaging posturing over the EU Nitrates Directive designed to prevent water pollution from agricultural sources. By announcing the withdrawal of his organisation from social partnership talks yesterday, he was clearly attempting to protect his members' interests on the water quality issue at the expense of the community at large.
One-fifth of all groundwater in this State has nitrate concentrations above EU limits and more than one-quarter of our major rivers and lakes suffer from excessive nutrient enrichment caused primarily by agriculture. This is neither environmentally healthy nor acceptable. Successive governments took no action because of the political and economic strength of farming interests. Now, under threat of fines and withholding of millions in Cap payments by the EU Commission, the Government has reluctantly introduced regulations on stocking levels and the storage and spreading of animal waste.
Negotiations between farming organisations and the two Government departments involved - Agriculture and the Environment - had been going on since 2001 and appeared to be positive. But when regulations were announced, last December, the reaction by affected farmers was predictable and very negative. The IFA threatened a boycott of Teagasc for giving bad scientific advice to the Government. Then a Teagasc spokesman claimed only part of its scientific advice had been taken. To assuage farmers, Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan increased grants for slurry storage on farms by up to 100 per cent. Minister for the Environment Dick Roche asked the commission for a derogation on stocking levels for commercial dairy farmers. Phosphate levels were placed under review. Strict controls will not be imposed on large pig and poultry farmers until 2008.
As the Government bent over backwards to meet the vociferous demands, farm leaders complained the new measures were unnecessary and inappropriate. They ignored historic damage caused by sections of their industry. Lough Sheelin was destroyed more than 20 years ago by pig slurry. Since then, the pig and poultry industries have grown. But Sheelin has not recovered. And water quality in many river catchment and lake systems has been badly damaged by intensive agriculture.
Farmers deserve sympathy and should get State aid to help them work in a more environmentally-friendly fashion. But they had plenty of warning. These water-protection measures have been coming for 15 years. The Government has a duty to protect the public interest. And the bottom line is agriculture must clean up its act.