Water quality: How Teagasc took a new approach to meeting targets

This is National Water Quality Week. Since Monday, Teagasc, in collaboration with the dairy processing co-ops and the Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO), has been running a series of events aimed at providing information and advice to farmers to help minimise water quality impacts from sources such as nutrients, sediment and pesticides.

Information is being delivered primarily through short videos posted on digital media platforms. Topics addressed include the importance of water quality to farmers, how to minimise nitrate losses from farms, measures to prevent sediment and phosphorus losses, best practice in pesticide use and the importance of good farmyard management practices with a focus on silage pits and effluent control, animal housing and soiled water management.

The idea for National Water Quality Week has its genesis in a change of emphasis in the State’s approach to water quality improvement efforts. Under the EU Water Framework Directive, Ireland is required to have all waters achieving “good” status by 2027.

Initially, the approach to achieving this target was the implementation of river basin management plans every six years. However, the most recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Water Quality Report for 2013-2018 has shown that water quality in Ireland actually declined in that time. The report found there was a decrease in good status surface waters of 2.6 per cent from the previous report, with 52.8 per cent of surface waters now attaining that target.

“All waters are covered by the directive, including rivers, lakes, groundwater and coastal waters,” says Noel Meehan, manager of the Teagasc Agricultural Sustainability, Support and Advisory Programme (ASSAP). “Groundwater is performing best at the moment, and we are mainly concerned with surface water.”

More engagement

The EPA report led to a policy rethink. “The first river basin plan didn’t succeed in its ambition,” he notes. “That wasn’t anyone’s fault. It became clear that regulation and enforcement and the blanket application of rules just doesn’t work. It was decided to flip it to a model involving more engagement with the farming sector and communities. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, the aim is to bring people on a journey. The need to become more collaborative was recognised.”

Two new initiatives were established as a result. The Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO) works with the newly created ASSAP in a collaborative process to provide an evidence-based approach to the issue.

Of critical importance is the fact that the LAWPRO doesn’t have any enforcement role. Although it is part of the local government structure, it works at a remove from the local authorities. This allows it to work with farmers in a collaborative way.

The ASSAP programmes has received strong funding and support from dairy processors, according to Meehan. “The dairy industry is very interested in this topic, and the support received from Aurivo, Arrabawn, Carbery, Dairygold, Glanbia, Kerry, Lakeland, North Cork, and Tipperary has been critical to enable this new approach,” says Meehan.

Free service

Funding from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has enabled Teagasc to provide 20 sustainability advisers, and the dairy co-ops have provided 10 advisers as part of the Dairy Sustainability Initiative – now known as Dairy Sustainability Ireland.

“We offer a confidential free service to help farmers deal with water quality problems,” Meehan adds. “The first thing we do is build up trust with the farmer. After that we look at the various aspects of the farm and very quickly try to get a handle on what’s going on to impact water quality. We then try to come up with a plan the farmer is happy with. That’s generally a two-year plan and we would hope to see an improvement in water quality over the following years.”

The collaborative effort to engage with the farmers and wider community with farming organisation support has led to a very encouraging level of farmer engagement in the programme, with 96 per cent of farmers engaging with ASSAP advisers. This has allowed advisers and farmers to work together to put in place farm-specific measures to help improve water quality, with farmers agreeing to these measures 89 per cent of the time.

But this is just the beginning, Meehan concludes. “Improvements in water quality will require the implementation of actions and measures at farm level over a sustained period of time.”

[ teagasc.ie/waterqualityweek ]