THE Dept. of Agriculture and Teagasc need to make ‘a bigger and better effort’ to communicate with farmers on issues relating to the use of protected urea in preference to CAN or standard urea, according to a Galway IFA representative.

Oranmore dairy farmer, and Galway IFA Environmental Representative Henry Walsh, told the Farming Tribune this week that there were gaps in relation to communications and education when it came to promoting the use of protected urea.

His comments come in the aftermath of ‘a leaked report’ last month of ‘the draft minutes’ from the national Agriculture Water Quality Group proposing the ‘banning’ of straight urea use from the autumn of 2025.

Since then, the IFA at national level, issued a statement saying that the ‘draft minutes’ as released had not been approved by the Water Quality Group with a number of concerns raised about the consistency of the product.

“Banning straight urea until these concerns are fully addressed is not the right approach and would be counter-productive,” the IFA statement added.

Henry Walsh said that concerns and questions raised by farmers about protected urea would have to be dealt with to reassure users in terms of the effectiveness of protected urea during unfavourable weather conditions.

“Everyone accepts the need for the agricultural sector to reduce emissions and using protected urea significantly reduces ammonia emissions [compared to standard urea] while being cheaper [by unit] than CAN.

“The Dept. of Agriculture and Teagasc need to get this message across to farmers through better communication and education.

“In the West of Ireland, where there are smaller holdings, a large proportion of farmers have an off-farm job and often can’t participate in educational farm walks.

“There seems to be a policy direction from some quarters of not giving farmers the choice when it comes to the use of protected urea – more needs to be done to bring farmers along on a co-operative and knowledge based approach,” said Henry Walsh.

Pictured: Galway IFA Environmental Representative Henry Walsh