Consultation on nitrates necessary - Alan Dukes (Feb 11)
Speaking at a Fine Gael District Executive meeting in Lugacurren, County Laois, the Fine Gael Spokesperson on Agriculture and the Marine called for all relevant interests to be fully consulted by the Government before decisions are made on the implementation of the EU Nitrates Directive in this country.
"The Government must understand some key facts.
First, the very nature of our rural environment as it is today depends on the maintenance of a vibrant farming community. A decline of farming would, over time, fundamentally alter the face of our rural environment in ways which we would not like to experience.
Second, animal manure or slurry is not a waste product. It is an important source of nutrient for our land, and a key component in the ecological loop of agriculture.
If environmental regulation fails to take account of those two facts, it will produce perverse results.
The variety of soil types and qualities, drainage conditions, topography and other important factors throughout the country means that there can be no single hard and fast set of prescriptions about the use of slurry or any other fertilizer.
The variability of weather conditions equally means that a single set of prescriptions about the timing of fertilizer application would be unrealistic.
A policy that fails to take account of these key facts would be massively damaging to our rural economy and to our agri-food industry.
The generalisation of curbs and controls such as those being contemplated would clearly have seriously adverse effects on the attractiveness and benefits of the REPS scheme. This scheme has produced important environmental benefits, but there is already clear evidence that over-regulation and excessive bureaucracy in the scheme has discouraged substantial numbers of participants from renewing their contracts.
That is a perverse result.
The definition of national policy in these areas is a complex matter, requiring a whole series of different objectives, economic, social and environmental, to be balanced. It is essential that we get the policy right. For that reason, all relevant interests must be fully consulted and there must be proper and stringent legislative oversight before final decisions are made.
For over a year, I have been trying to get the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to state to what extent and how they have been working together on these issues, as they must. All I have got in response has been a succession of evasive and bureaucratic platitudes.
I can state as a fact to these two Ministers and to the Government in general that rural Ireland will not accept a diktat on these issues."
