It will be a number of weeks before dairy farmers have clarity on what nitrates band their farm will be in from 1 January 2023, Ted Massey, senior inspector at the Department of Agriculture has said.

Addressing a Kerry Agribusiness event in Charleville on Tuesday night, he told farmers that a system to calculate the nitrate bands for individual farms is in the final stages of development.

“We’re faced with two ways of doing it. We could ask all dairy farmers in the country to submit data to us but we are working to devise a system that will be much simpler for the farmer and much easier for us to administer as well.

“We are in the final stages of developing that system and we should be able to talk fully about it in a couple of weeks’ time.”

Confirmation

Regardless of the method of calculation, farmers will still have to wait until early 2023 before they have confirmation of what band they will be in, as final stock numbers and milk deliveries for December need to be factored in.

The meeting heard that based on estimations, approximately 15% of herds could be included in band three, which would see the organic N exretion rate increase from the current figure of 89kg/cow to 106kg/cow.

While uncertainty remains regarding the issue, questions from the floor on the topic were few and far between.