Communications between the country’s largest farming sector, dairy, and the Government are getting increasingly shrill. As Department of Agricultural published figures, showing Irish agri-food exports were worth €19 billion last year, with dairy exports worth €7 billion, Pat McCormack, the head of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA), welcomed the data but decried what he described as “the Government’s animosity towards the dairy sector”.
Officialdom’s latest betrayal, in McCormack’s eyes, is to accept the European Commission’s move to cut the upper nitrates limit enjoyed by Irish farmers, which many view as a cull of the dairy herd by the back door.
Brussels has been threatening to limit the use of fertilisers here on back of declining water quality.
Ireland has traditionally been in receipt of a derogation from the EU nitrates directive because it has a long growing season and because the land can, in theory, absorb more fertilisers. However a massive expansion in dairy since the lifting of milk quotas in 2015 has coincided with increasing levels of water pollution.
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As a result, the commission is, from next year, lowering the maximum nitrate allowance for Ireland to 220kg per hectare in line with Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendations.
“The Irish dairy sector was worth nearly €7 billion last year and is the one sector in which Ireland indisputably leads the world in terms of technology, technical excellence, marketing and scientifically proven environmental sustainability,” McCormack said in response to the department’s figures.
“No one disputes that Ireland is the most sustainable location on the planet to produce milk and the Government’s response to that is to systematically shut down Irish production and watch while that is moved overseas to other producers with much higher emissions and greater environmental impact. Ireland will lose and overall emissions will rise,” he said.
Green Party leader and Minister for Environment Eamon Ryan got a lukewarm reception at the ICMSA’s annual general meeting in Limerick earlier this month but insisted farmers were not the enemy and that progress on climate change needed to be made with the support of farmers.
