Lying at the heart of the row over the nitrates directive is a nasty scandal. It concerns the power which vested interests have been allowed to exert in an area which should in the public interest be entirely independent, writes Mary Raftery
What has happened over this directive is of the most immediate concern to every man, woman and child in this country. It deals with our right to stop farmers from contaminating our drinking water, our rivers, streams and lakes.
In their battle to scupper the nitrates directive in recent weeks, farmers have stated publicly that they are not at all responsible for water pollution. This is simply untrue.
The most recent state of the environment report from the Environmental Protection Agency clearly lays out the position. Farmers are by far the worst polluters of water in the country, accounting for more damage than all the other main groupings (sewage works, industry, etc) put together.
The second piece of disinformation currently being promulgated by farmer organisations is that we in this country do not really have a water pollution problem at all, and that consequently, any interference with their fertiliser use is unwarranted.
Again, this is entirely inaccurate. Thirty per cent of our rivers are either moderately or slightly polluted, and the water quality here has been getting worse over the past 30 years. What this actually means is that almost one third of all rivers are euthrophic, with excessive aquatic plant and algae growth cutting off the oxygen and killing other life in the water.
In Ireland, the main cause of this is the use by farmers of phosphorus as a fertiliser on their land. An extraordinary situation has developed here where scientific research has shown that farmers are using massively more phosphorus than is necessary, at great financial cost to themselves and of course to the environment.
It used to be thought that phosphorus was retained in the soil, and would not run off into water courses. Due mainly to intensive research from Teagasc, we now know that this is not true. Almost half the land of Ireland is completely saturated in phosphorus, with dangerous amounts running off to pollute rivers and lakes. The higher the concentration of phosphorus in the soil, the more likely it is to leach into water courses, where a relatively small amount will cause immense damage. It is estimated that it will take decades to reduce the enormous and continuing threat to our water caused by the phosphorus already there, let alone by any additional amounts used as fertiliser.
One study has shown that only a quarter of the phosphorus applied is actually usefully taken up by plants as fertiliser. Three quarters of it is useless to the farmer, but its build-up in the soil is what does so much environmental damage. Teagasc has consequently been advising farmers to reduce their use of phosphorus, with a resulting overall drop of one third during the past decade. However, even with that decline, the EPA still estimates that farmers are using twice as much phosphorus as is either necessary or even useful for plant growth.
In this context, it beggars belief that the one area of the nitrates directive which has been put on hold is that which limits the amount of phosphorus farmers may apply to their land. It seems that this has been done as a direct result of pressure from farmers' organisations, applied in the first instance to Teagasc, and by extension to the Department of the Environment.
Earlier this week, Teagasc revised upwards the phosphorus limits it recommends for agricultural use. It appears it now favours a considerably higher level than that recommended by its own scientific research.
An extensive study on phosphorus damage carried out by Dr Hubert Tunney recommended that the target levels for soils should be set at the lower end of index 2. (This index classification for soils ranges from 1 to 4, where index 1 has a low phosphorus content and index 4 is completely saturated.) Teagasc has not published its latest recommendation but it has reportedly set the target at index 3, thus accepting a much higher level of phosphorus in the soil.
Teagasc's board of directors includes substantial representation from farm interests, to a point where they appear to be dominant. Teagasc, however, is funded by the taxpayer to produce independent recommendations based on scientific research, free from the influence of any vested interests.
The nearest equivalent might be an environmental advisory body with substantial involvement by industrial polluters on its board of directors.
One urgent lesson to be taken from the mess that has developed over the nitrates directive must be a re-examination of the board of Teagasc so that it is allowed to function free from the kind of pressure from vested interests which we have witnessed over the past weeks.