The two- and three-crop rules are coming under pressure from many at present as CAP negotiations get under way.

Figures in the Irish Farmers Journal revealed last month that 72% of farmers with tillage had 30ha of crops or less.

Speaking on the Irish Farmers Journal’s Tillage Podcast, agronomist and farmer George Blackburn said: “The practical reality of this on the ground is it creates a whole heap of hassle and a whole heap of stress.”

George said many of his customers in Wexford are affected by these rules, which are adding stress to their farm businesses.

He cannot see the benefit of the rule economically or environmentally, noting that Ireland has more crop diversification by default than any country in Europe.

“If you walk down a road in any tillage area, you could see 10 different crops in a mile,” he commented, adding that: “If you look at it on a macro-level, we’re more than compliant.

“This definitely needs to be looked at more closely in the next CAP because this is just regulation for the sake of regulation,” he said.

George gave an example of one farm he had been on that day. The 78ac tillage farm required three crops. This farm is just over the 30ha cut-off to have three crops on the farm.

Extra inputs

It is a part-time farm and a contractor comes in to spray the crops, meaning he has to come for three crops, so he could travel to the farm nine or 10 times in the year, instead of three.

George added that the sprayer needs to be cleaned out between the beans herbicide and the cereal herbicides and vice versa. It also needs to be cleaned out following the application of a wild oat spray.

This is all resulting in extra diesel being used and the farmer is left with half cans of spray, as the 8ac of oats only requires about half a can of many products.

Equivalence

George also noted that many of his growers had entered into ACRES to grow catch crops before they knew about equivalence. Equivalence allows you to grow a catch crop on half of your tillage land and grow one crop instead of two or three.

The agronomist explained that the rules were frustrating farmers and industry instead of bolstering the industry, which should be happening at present.

You can hear the full interview with George, including plenty of information on crops on the Tillage Podcast at this link.