MANAGING peat soils in Ireland has become a major talking point and had been allowed to become a divisive issue by Dept. of Agriculture procrastination and lack of clear information, according to North-West-Midlands Independent MEP Luke Ming Flanagan.

He said that in the last CAP reform, a new GAEC ll Standard (Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition) was introduced to encourage better management of organic soils.

“Concerns were raised immediately in respect of the implementation of this and its potential to negatively affect the livelihoods of farmers.

“Taking on board these concerns and acting on behalf of farmers, I worked in the background with colleagues at EU level to ensure that a footnote was added to the final text of the regulation that allowed for agricultural activity to be continued and maintained in these lands,” said MEP Flanagan in a statement issued last week.

He said that in the implementation of this new standard, a two-year derogation or lead-in period was granted to allow for the identification of organic soils and to allow for consultation with farmers who would be impacted.

However, MEP Flanagan said that in the intervening period, little in the way of genuine consultation had taken place.

“While there have been stakeholder meetings, concerns raised by organisations representing farmers working these lands, were effectively ignored.

“There has been no public dissemination of what the Dept was proposing which allowed for misinformation to be spread, and the issue to be wrongly conflated with rewetting proposals contained in the Nature Restoration Regulation” he said.

He added that the current approach from the Dept proposed that if the land parcel (LPIS parcel) contained 51% organic soil, then the entire land parcel would come under the GAEC ll restriction.

On the other hand, if only 49% of the parcel contained organic soil then this parcel would not be considered to be in need of protection.

“This approach lacks fairness and balance from both the perspective of the farmer and in achieving the objective of the standard.

“For the farmers impacted, it may have far reaching consequences as in many cases their entire farms including the mineral soils on their holding will now come under the restrictive measure to comply with the GAEC ll standard.

“In the short term, these may not be too onerous: however, it is clear in the evolution of the Natura directives that there are long term negative impacts from having a designation of this type applied to farmland.

“These include a myriad of restrictions on the type and intensity of farming activities, and the devaluation of the farmer’s asset,” said Luke Ming Flanagan.

He said that farmers had demonstrated repeatedly over the years that they are willing to take on new challenges, but there must be equality in the implementation of measures and one group cannot be required to do ‘all the heavy lifting’ while another group remain unaffected.

“Farmers see in the delivery of the current environmental scheme, ACRES, that proper payments for the delivery of environmental service is not high on the agenda of the Dept.

“The haphazard nature of the implementation of this, along with the meagre payments, does not inspire confidence in the farming community.

“It is important to highlight that over the last few years farmers working organic soils have been unfairly targeted and the finger pointed at them as the main contributor to GHGs from agriculture.  This is erroneous and unfair.

“It may suit an agenda in the short-term to point the finger at organic soils but in the longer term, addressing pollution at source, is the only way to reduce its impact,” said MEP Flanagan.

Pictured: MEP Luke Ming Flanagan: Farmers need a fair deal on organic soils issue.