Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) president Denis Drennan has said he is “confident” that Irish farmers will deliver water quality improvements, in response to a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) water quality report.
In its Water Quality in 2023: An Indicators Report the EPA identified the “biggest issue impacting water quality” last year as nutrient pollution from agriculture and wastewater.
The report showed that water quality generally in Ireland is not improving and while “some improvements are being made, these are being offset by declines elsewhere”.
The ICMSA president said water quality issues must be dealt with on a “site-specific basis,” instead of what he described as more regulations being placed upon farmers and “unnecessarily undermining the economic viability of farm families”.
There was “no significant change in any of the water quality indicators” for Ireland’s rivers, lakes, estuaries and groundwaters in 2023, according to the EPA report.
On these figures, Drennan said, that while there has been no significant change in water quality, he detailed that “it should be noted that from mid-June 2023, weather conditions deteriorated.
“The second half of the year was extremely wet and the science shows that extreme weather conditions have a negative impact on water quality which should be factored into the data and commentary,” he added.
Achieving better water quality
Responding to the release of the report, Drennan has said that “a collaborative approach” with industry and government support is requires to work with farmers to achieve better water quality.
Drennan said “farmers have and are continuing to make significant changes”.
Referring to the usage of chemical nitrogen being “31% lower than 2018 levels,” Drennan said he was “confident that water quality will show improvements in the coming years taking account of the time lag factor in water quality improvement”.
Drennan called for “a balanced approach to water quality issues” and referred to a “contradiction” in the EPA report.
He said the EPA statement “calls for ‘full compliance with the Good Agricultural Practice Regulations'” but is “asking Uisce Éireann for an acceleration ‘in delivering improvements in wastewater infrastructure'”.
The ICMSA president said: “The contradiction here is obvious and Uisce Éireann should have to meet the same standard as farmers and not be given 20 years to get their house in order.”
“The government need to address this contradiction and we cannot continue to load regulation on farmers to the point of putting them out of business while a state agency with €1.3 billion revenues is given special treatment,” Drennan added.