This week, Aidan Brennan outlines
why exporting slurry off livestock farms to farms that require more nutrients is not the solution to the current Nitrates debacle. In theory it sounds right to level off the nutrients into farms to replace purchased artificial nutrients.
This week, Aidan Brennan outlines why exporting slurry off livestock farms to farms that require more nutrients is not the solution to the current Nitrates debacle.
In theory it sounds right to level off the nutrients into farms to replace purchased artificial nutrients.
However, as the European Commission experts who visited west Cork last week established, exporting slurry can work in a Dutch or Danish indoor situation where there is slurry produced all year round to maintain high stocking rates on relatively smaller parcels of land.
In an Irish context, where there is only slurry produced for a four to five month window, you simply can’t, as the volume and cost of doing that would make it a non-runner for farmers.
So again, while in theory it sounds practical to have tillage farmers invest in slurry stores, in reality, given that livestock farmers need the nutrients themselves and the additional costs of transport etc – it’s not really something you can bank a long-term investment on.
Preliminary analysis by our buildings specialist Martin Merrick suggests it would take 10 to 12 years for a tillage farmer to get a return on slurry storage investment using current costs and pricing models. That’s not a good enough return for those farmers in a tillage sector under pressure to meet everyday costs.
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: