Covered slurry stores and ban on urea – the plan to tackle emissions

Reducing emission, sequestering carbon and tackling ammonia - what the agricultural sector has to do.

Barry Cassidy

18 November 2019

Covered slurry stores and ban on urea – the plan to tackle emissions

Among the plans, proposed requirements is prohibiting the use of urea in particular on grassland by 2025.

The Department of Agriculture has published a draft document called Ag-Climatise, which sets out what the agricultural sector must do to meet its target of reducing emissions by 10% to 15% by 2030. The document is currently a draft and the Department is seeking farmer and stakeholder feedback on it. However, it does contain a number of ambitious and challenging targets for the sector to meet.

The Department of Agriculture has published a draft document called Ag-Climatise, which sets out what the agricultural sector must do to meet its target of reducing emissions by 10% to 15% by 2030.

The document is currently a draft and the Department is seeking farmer and stakeholder feedback on it. However, it does contain a number of ambitious and challenging targets for the sector to meet.

Fertiliser

Among the plans, proposed requirements is prohibiting the use of urea in particular on grassland by 2025. It would be replaced by protected urea, which currently accounts for just 1% of fertiliser sales. There is also an aim to halve the use of CAN and replace those sales with protected urea by 2022.

To reduce nutrient loss to the environment, the Department has proposed all external slurry stores are covered by 2022 and all stores constructed in the last five years covered by 2025.

There is also an aim to halve the use of CAN and replace those sales with protected urea by 2022

Low-emission slurry spreading is a key plank in the plan. The Department wants to see 60% of all slurry spread through low-emission technologies by 2022, rising to 75% by 2025 and a longer-term ambition of 90%.

There are also proposals to have clover incorporated in all grass reseeds by 2022.

For tillage farmers, it is proposed that all farmyard manure or slurry spread on arable land be incorporated within 12 hours.

The breeding herd

Targeting increased genetic gain will also be a key focus for the beef and dairy sectors.

The plan sets targets of:

Rate of EBI gain to increase from €10/cow/year to €15/cow/year.

Rate of dairy beef index gain from €0/calf/year to €5/calf/year.

Rate of €uro-Star gain from €5/cow/year to €10/year/year.

Other areas of improvement include:

75% of dairy herds milk recording, up from 50%.

60% of suckler beef herds weighing animals, up from 30%.

75% of dairy herds in genomic programmes, up from 1%.

75% of beef herds in genomic programmes, up from 40%.

The animal feed sector is also included in the plan. It calls for a reduction in levels of crude protein in both pig and ruminant feed.

Land use changes

The development of sustainable land use is another area farmers can expect to see changes. The Department’s draft targets are for 40,000ha of peat-based soil under “reduced management intensity”, 450,000ha optimised for soil pH and 50% of arable spring production growing covering crops.

The full draft plan is available here. The Department has invited responses to a survey here.

Department invites farmer views to reduce emissions

Comparing nitrate levels in water across the EU