Movement of organic fertilisers to stay within limits

Farmers are obliged to ensure compliance with the limits of the nitrates regulations, thus avoiding penalties for breaching the limits of 170kg of nitrogen per hectare or, for those who hold an approved derogation, 250kg of nitrogen per hectare.

Derogations are granted, subject to conditions, following an online application process by the herd owner or his adviser.

Measures all farmers can take to avoid exceeding the nitrates limit include:

There are records which the farmer needs to submit to the Department to have these activities taken into account. These are:

All of these forms are available on the Department’s website at www.agriculture.gov.ie.

These forms are particularly important for farmers wishing to avail of such agreements in order to ensure compliance with the limits.

Only records received before the deadline of 31 December 2017 can be taken into account when calculating the nitrate levels for 2017.

Details of the slurry movements from Record 3 forms that were submitted in relation to 2016 and processed by the Department are outlined in Table 1.

For those farmers who are registered with www.agfood.ie, nitrogen and phosphorus statements for cattle only are available online.

These statements are beneficial to farmers to assist them to keep within the limits provided for in the nitrates regulations.

In addition to the statements available online, informational text messages issue periodically to farmers registered to receive them from the Department.

Farmers not already registered for agfood.ie can do so by logging on to www.agfood.ie and clicking the register button.

Farmers who wish to receive text alerts can do so by clicking the link on the contact us section on the home page of the Department’s website www.agriculture.gov.ie.