Farmer fears over rewetting to the fore in Athlone

Farmer fears over rewetting were to the fore at an IFA-organised meeting for farmers with peat soils in Athlone last Thursday.

Farmers were told by Department of Agriculture officials on the night that the rewetting of their land will be voluntary under the Nature Restoration Law and that they would be incentivised to rewet of their own volition.

However, a number of farmers raised concerns about neighbouring farmers rewetting adjoining land and the potential impact it could have.

Laois IFA chair Henry Burns said that for the first time in a generation, beef farmers, sheep farmers and dairy farmers are getting a living out of the production they’re doing.

“Never has there been a better time to produce food. Improvements that our forefathers made on the land and that we continue to make, it made that land productive.

“Some of the reassurances are helpful tonight, but we have huge fears. There’s a huge amount of land adjoining the Bord na Móna land and Coillte land and if that’s all flooded...[that’s] land we’re all our lives draining.

“We know there’s always one awkward fella that won’t clear the drain. We’re dealing with flooding all our lives and that’s the fear.”

Department officials were asked that if planning permission was needed for new drainage on peat soils, would permission also be needed to block drains for rewetting.

Department official Bill Callanan responded by saying he couldn’t answer the question but that it was a question the Department will have to consider.

“I think it’s a very appropriate question,” he said. He added that this issue and the issue of neighbours rewetting land would come up at the consultation stage of any scheme that is put in place.

Midlands northwest MEP Ciaran Mullooly said his family had 18ac of bottoms land next to Bord na Móna land.

“The problem is, that land is still next to Bord na Móna land. When they move to rewet the land, and they will, the drain and the river at the end of our land will be closed. What is going to happen to our land then? That will not be a voluntary designation, that will be [rewetting] by stealth,” he said.

IFA president Alice Doyle said that measures cannot be imposed in a top-down manner on farmers.

“Farmers need to be fully informed. It’s not good enough that farmers are hearing what’s happening to their farms in the media,” she said.