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The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney T.D., and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan T.D., announced that Ireland has secured derogation under the Nitrates Directive after a vote at a meeting of the EU Nitrates Management Committee in Brussels.
This decision follows on Minister Hogan’s signing last week of the new Nitrates Regulations which give effect to Ireland’s third Nitrates Action Programme. This Programme will now be amended to reflect the terms of the derogation. Today’s derogation vote will allow more intensive farmers to operate at a higher stocking rate than that stipulated in the Directive, subject to adherence to stricter rules to be implemented by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The derogation will run to the end of 2017, when the 3rd programme concludes.
The new derogation allows farmers to exceed the limit of 170 kg of organic nitrogen per hectare set down in the Nitrates Regulations, up to a maximum of 250 kg per hectare, subject to adherence to stricter rules.
Wednesday February 5, 2014/ Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine/ Ireland.
http://www.agriculture.gov.ie
