A call was made this week on Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney to take immediate steps to extend the deadline concerning the spreading of slurry on farm land.

Deputy Mattie McGrath was speaking after receiving a significant number of representations from worried farmers who risk breaching Department of Agriculture guidelines by seeking to wait until their grass harvesting is complete before spreading slurry.

“This really is an absolutely absurd and ridiculous situation that has been continuing now for too many years and it has placed farmers in extremely difficult positions. Ever since the EEC Nitrates Directive was adopted in 1991, I have been saying that the idea of trying to regulate the use of slurry by following a completely arbitrary calendar model is simply unrealistic and demonstrates beyond any doubt that the people who framed it have no real world experience of farming practice,” Deputy McGrath said.

“How can it be reasonable or justifiable to insist to farmers that they must spread slurry over their grass harvest for no better reason that to comply with an outmoded directive?”

Under the Nitrates Regulations farmers must not apply more than 170kgs of nitrogen from livestock manure per hectare per year. However, grassland farmers with grazing stock may apply annually for a derogation to apply up to a limit of 250kg per hectare in a calendar year, under certain conditions.

“In 2008 I successfully persuaded Brendan Smith who was then Minister for Agriculture that the spreading of slurry deadline had to be extended. The current Minister urgently needs to do the same. More than this however what we need going forward is a complete revision of the very narrow parameters of the Nitrate Directive.”