The facilities at CAFRE Greenmount were close to being overwhelmed last Thursday when around 1,000 farmers turned up to voice their opposition to proposed changes to the Nutrients Action Programme (NAP).
The meeting, which was the second in-person event organised as part of a public consultation process, heard passionate contributions from the floor, while the proceedings were briefly interrupted by a tractor protest.
Summing up the mood of the room, Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) president William Irvine said no one in the industry supports the proposed NAP changes and that the entire consultation process is flawed.
“There is no economic impact assessment, no engagement with stakeholders. It is a complete car crash. Lift it off the table, engage with us. We are up for sensible discussion on a reasonable way forward – this is just a shambles,” he said.
Despite that criticism, DAERA officials defended their work to date, pointing out that many of the main proposals in the latest NAP were raised with stakeholder organisations at events last May and November 2024. Copies of all the presentations are available on the DAERA website.
“To suggest the farm organisations were aware of the extent of this is just plain wrong,” countered the UFU president.
What is not in dispute is that there is a surplus of around 7,000t annually of phosphorus (P) in NI agriculture, mainly from bought-in feed (80%) and chemical fertiliser (20%). This surplus needs to be reduced to help improve water quality.
To do that, DAERA has proposed strict new P balances of 10kgP/ha by 2027 falling to 8kg P/ha by 2029 for intensive farms stocked at over 150kg manure nitrogen (N) /ha. Initial analysis has suggested these P limits will be almost impossible for more intensive farms without taking on significantly more land or exporting a lot of manure. The worse-case scenario is that these farms have to cut numbers.
NI Water
With that possibility in mind, there is a lot of frustration among farmers that the focus seems to be on them and not waste water treatment.
“There is a plethora of housing around every lake and outdated sewage systems in towns. We don’t see any hint of that in your figures,” suggested former UFU president Will Taylor.
Responding, DAERA senior civil servant Julie Thompson said the NAP regulations simply deal with agriculture, but accepted there are other sources of water pollution. The best estimate remains that 62% of the P input to waterways comes from agriculture, with 24% coming from waste water and 12% from septic tanks.
“We are fully aware this is not just an agriculture issue. Waste water needs to be addressed,” said Thompson.
To help improve the robustness of the data, AFBI is collecting water samples upstream and downstream of Banbridge.
“There are areas where there are big issues with waste water treatment. But research takes time,” said AFBI scientist Dr Rachel Cassidy.
Ex scientist ‘astounded’ by cut to N fertiliser
Former AFBI chief Dr Sinclair Mayne told last Thursday’s meeting he was “astounded” at the significant cut to nitrogen (N) fertiliser to apply in the new NAP from 1 January 2026.
“Grass is good at extracting P from soil. One of the simplest solutions is to grow more grass. Good grass and good silage leads to lower carbon emissions, less need for concentrate, so less P,” he said.
What has been proposed in the revised NAP is significantly more complicated than the current scenario where dairy farms can apply up to 272kg N/ha and other farms, up to 222kg N/ha.
Instead, on the back of research at AFBI, the Department has suggested taking account of the nutrients available in slurry, with new limits for grass silage and grazing dependent on system of production. For a typical dairy farm, it would see N on grazing limited to 180kg/ha or 5.5 bags of 27% N/acre.
“That will only grow two-thirds of the potential it can grow. Why are you restricting our grass-based industry when we don’t have an N issue in water, by and large?” questioned Mayne.
Low P
One other potential anomaly was raised by Co Down dairy farmer James Brown, who operates a reasonably low-input system outside Ballywalter.
Given his system is grass-based, his P balance is actually low, so he needs to use some P chemical fertiliser to maintain soil fertility. If DAERA goes ahead with a plan to effectively ban the use of this fertiliser (outside of reseeding), then James has limited options.
Given his farm is stocked above 150kg manure N/ha, he won’t be able to import slurry. “My only option? I will need to put more feed in. You need to look at it all again,” he said.
DAERA publishes latest data on P levels in 2024
A NI environmental statistics report released last Thursday confirms that soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) levels at 93 surveillance rivers in NI increased to 0.065mg/l in 2024.
Going back to the period before the NAP was introduced in 2007, SRP levels were as high as 0.083mg (recorded in 2005). However, the first few years of the NAP had a positive effect, with SRP falling to 0.047mg/l in 2012.
Since then the trend has been upwards and in their consultation document, DAERA compares the 2012 figure against 2022, when SRP was at 0.073mg/l, an increase of 55%.
But in 2023, SRP fell to 0.062mg, so it is a 32% increase on 2012.
The fact that 2023 data was not quoted in the DAERA consultation has led some to suggest the Department has been manipulating the data to suit their argument.
“You are cherry-picking your evidence,” suggested Tyrone dairy farmer Andrew Wright.
In their report published last Thursday, the Department pointed to “reduced sampling in summer 2023 due to staffing resource pressures”, with officials maintaining that is the reason the consultation comparison was not done to that data. Either way, SRP levels in 2024 are 38% up on 2012.
The environment statistics report also details the number of pollution incidents in NI. In 2024, there were 1,886 incidents noted by the NI Environment Agency (NIEA), with 887 confirmed as having an impact on water quality.
Of these, the largest proportion (32%) are accounted for by farms, with 287 incidents, up from the 249 in 2023. There were 130 incidents caused by “industry”, followed by 114 labelled as “domestic” and 79 due to NI Water. Most of the 887 incidents (87%) are classed as “low severity” by NIEA.
The facilities at CAFRE Greenmount were close to being overwhelmed last Thursday when around 1,000 farmers turned up to voice their opposition to proposed changes to the Nutrients Action Programme (NAP).
The meeting, which was the second in-person event organised as part of a public consultation process, heard passionate contributions from the floor, while the proceedings were briefly interrupted by a tractor protest.
Summing up the mood of the room, Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) president William Irvine said no one in the industry supports the proposed NAP changes and that the entire consultation process is flawed.
“There is no economic impact assessment, no engagement with stakeholders. It is a complete car crash. Lift it off the table, engage with us. We are up for sensible discussion on a reasonable way forward – this is just a shambles,” he said.
Despite that criticism, DAERA officials defended their work to date, pointing out that many of the main proposals in the latest NAP were raised with stakeholder organisations at events last May and November 2024. Copies of all the presentations are available on the DAERA website.
“To suggest the farm organisations were aware of the extent of this is just plain wrong,” countered the UFU president.
What is not in dispute is that there is a surplus of around 7,000t annually of phosphorus (P) in NI agriculture, mainly from bought-in feed (80%) and chemical fertiliser (20%). This surplus needs to be reduced to help improve water quality.
To do that, DAERA has proposed strict new P balances of 10kgP/ha by 2027 falling to 8kg P/ha by 2029 for intensive farms stocked at over 150kg manure nitrogen (N) /ha. Initial analysis has suggested these P limits will be almost impossible for more intensive farms without taking on significantly more land or exporting a lot of manure. The worse-case scenario is that these farms have to cut numbers.
NI Water
With that possibility in mind, there is a lot of frustration among farmers that the focus seems to be on them and not waste water treatment.
“There is a plethora of housing around every lake and outdated sewage systems in towns. We don’t see any hint of that in your figures,” suggested former UFU president Will Taylor.
Responding, DAERA senior civil servant Julie Thompson said the NAP regulations simply deal with agriculture, but accepted there are other sources of water pollution. The best estimate remains that 62% of the P input to waterways comes from agriculture, with 24% coming from waste water and 12% from septic tanks.
“We are fully aware this is not just an agriculture issue. Waste water needs to be addressed,” said Thompson.
To help improve the robustness of the data, AFBI is collecting water samples upstream and downstream of Banbridge.
“There are areas where there are big issues with waste water treatment. But research takes time,” said AFBI scientist Dr Rachel Cassidy.
Ex scientist ‘astounded’ by cut to N fertiliser
Former AFBI chief Dr Sinclair Mayne told last Thursday’s meeting he was “astounded” at the significant cut to nitrogen (N) fertiliser to apply in the new NAP from 1 January 2026.
“Grass is good at extracting P from soil. One of the simplest solutions is to grow more grass. Good grass and good silage leads to lower carbon emissions, less need for concentrate, so less P,” he said.
What has been proposed in the revised NAP is significantly more complicated than the current scenario where dairy farms can apply up to 272kg N/ha and other farms, up to 222kg N/ha.
Instead, on the back of research at AFBI, the Department has suggested taking account of the nutrients available in slurry, with new limits for grass silage and grazing dependent on system of production. For a typical dairy farm, it would see N on grazing limited to 180kg/ha or 5.5 bags of 27% N/acre.
“That will only grow two-thirds of the potential it can grow. Why are you restricting our grass-based industry when we don’t have an N issue in water, by and large?” questioned Mayne.
Low P
One other potential anomaly was raised by Co Down dairy farmer James Brown, who operates a reasonably low-input system outside Ballywalter.
Given his system is grass-based, his P balance is actually low, so he needs to use some P chemical fertiliser to maintain soil fertility. If DAERA goes ahead with a plan to effectively ban the use of this fertiliser (outside of reseeding), then James has limited options.
Given his farm is stocked above 150kg manure N/ha, he won’t be able to import slurry. “My only option? I will need to put more feed in. You need to look at it all again,” he said.
DAERA publishes latest data on P levels in 2024
A NI environmental statistics report released last Thursday confirms that soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) levels at 93 surveillance rivers in NI increased to 0.065mg/l in 2024.
Going back to the period before the NAP was introduced in 2007, SRP levels were as high as 0.083mg (recorded in 2005). However, the first few years of the NAP had a positive effect, with SRP falling to 0.047mg/l in 2012.
Since then the trend has been upwards and in their consultation document, DAERA compares the 2012 figure against 2022, when SRP was at 0.073mg/l, an increase of 55%.
But in 2023, SRP fell to 0.062mg, so it is a 32% increase on 2012.
The fact that 2023 data was not quoted in the DAERA consultation has led some to suggest the Department has been manipulating the data to suit their argument.
“You are cherry-picking your evidence,” suggested Tyrone dairy farmer Andrew Wright.
In their report published last Thursday, the Department pointed to “reduced sampling in summer 2023 due to staffing resource pressures”, with officials maintaining that is the reason the consultation comparison was not done to that data. Either way, SRP levels in 2024 are 38% up on 2012.
The environment statistics report also details the number of pollution incidents in NI. In 2024, there were 1,886 incidents noted by the NI Environment Agency (NIEA), with 887 confirmed as having an impact on water quality.
Of these, the largest proportion (32%) are accounted for by farms, with 287 incidents, up from the 249 in 2023. There were 130 incidents caused by “industry”, followed by 114 labelled as “domestic” and 79 due to NI Water. Most of the 887 incidents (87%) are classed as “low severity” by NIEA.
SHARING OPTIONS