The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has put forward proposals to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) that will ease what it said is the “ridiculous burden” that nitrates banding will place on farmers.
According to the association, the proposals will not increase overall or individual presence of nitrogen (N) on farms.
The DAFM said that farmers should submit information to confirm the 2023 excretion rate band for their herd by March 16, 2023.
President of the ICMSA, Pat McCormack has expressed his disappointment that Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue seems to have decided to proceed with an “unworkable” system for this year.
Banding rules
McCormack said that the urgency of the situation “compelled” the ICMSA to put proposals to the DAFM that would mitigate the worst effects of the Banding plans.
“We have to emphasise that we still think the minister’s timeline is unworkable and would just remind everyone that the farmers who will be affected – and in many cases, ruined – by this proposal have still not received official correspondence as we head into March,” McCormack said.
“But on the basis of trying to bring forward solutions to the problems caused by others, ICMSA is asking the minister and his officials to exclude calves under 60 days from the farm’s N calculation.
“Calves of that age produce infinitesimal N and so the 24kg of N from zero to six months should be reduced accordingly. That change would also have animal welfare benefits,” he added.
“We also suggest that where a farmer uses a low protein nut, they should get a credit for this under their N calculation.”
ICMSA argued that the science is stating that for every 1% reduction in protein, it is equivalent to 1kg of N/cow.
So, if a farmer uses a 12% protein nut during the summer period and is in Band 2, then the ICMSA said that they should be allowed 88kg of N/cow instead of 92kg of N/cow.
“Such a move would also incentivise farmers to use a lower protein nut at times when it is appropriate to do so,” McCormack said.
Suspend nitrates banding
The association has called on the agriculture minister to suspend the introduction of banding for this year and to set up an “overview review” which it said would allow all parties to get an informed idea of what is going to be an “absolutely brutal and unjustified attack on family dairy farms and their incomes”, adding:
“It’s worth remembering that this is going to be the first time since 1983 that dairy farmers will be forced to cut back production – many of the technically best dairy farmers in the world and who pose absolutely no risk to water quality.”
McCormack said that if the minister does not suspend the banding rules, “then the very least he could do was look at the ICMSA’s two options to try and offset the most egregious damage done by this unfair and unworkable measure”.
New rules
Up until the end of 2022, all dairy cows in the country were considered equal in producing 89kg of livestock manure nitrogen per head per year.
However, the department said that scientific research has shown increasing milk yield also increases the dairy cow’s nutrient excretion rate.
In order to reflect this research, the banding system for dairy herds is being introduced.
From 2023 onwards each dairy herd will be assigned to one of three bands each year based on the herd’s average annual milk yield per cow as follows:
Band Herd average milk yield Nitrogen excretion rate (kg/cow/yr) 1 <4,500kg 80 2 4,501-6,500kg 92 3 >6,500kg 106