Refresher: The Teagasc Better Farming for Water Campaign

The Teagasc Better Farming for Water campaign was cited as a substantive action in the today, August 20, published Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s plan to progress the retaining of Ireland’s Nitrates Derogation post 2025.

In this article, we take a look at some of the campaign’s key elements.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue T.D., requested Teagasc to lead a multi-actor water quality advisory campaign to deliver clear, simple and positive messaging to enhance farmers’, as well as the broader agri-food industry’s, understanding of the agriculture pressures on water quality and the need for improvement. This resulted in the development and launch of the Teagasc Better Farming for Water campaign.

The Teagasc Better Farming for Water campaign will build on the progress made through existing water quality programmes such as ACP, ACRES, ASSAP, Farming for Water EIP, Waters of LIFE, Blue Dot Catchments, Slaney project and others to improve water quality. It aims to support and accelerate the adoption of actions on all farms to improve all water bodies (where agriculture is a significant pressure) to Good or High Ecological Status.

This campaign brings together farmers, advisors, researchers, agri-food industry, community and government in a collective sectoral effort to support farmers to implement solutions to address the quality of the water in their local stream or river. The campaign is being delivered at farm, catchment and regional scale, and is part of a wider whole-of government approach to improve water quality.

Actions for change

Eight actions for change have been identified that farmers can take on their own farms which will lead to improvements in water quality. These 8-Actions are in three critical management areas, namely: Nutrient management; Farmyard management and Land management. The campaign will support all farmers to reduce the loads of nitrogen, phosphate, sediment and pesticides entering our river network through either diffuse or point source pathways from agricultural sources.

The 8-Actions for Change of the campaign aim to:

1. Reduce purchased nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) surplus per hectare.
2. Ensure soil fertility is optimal for lime, phosphorus and potassium.
3. Ensure application of fertiliser and organic manure at appropriate times and conditions.
4. Have sufficient slurry and soiled water storage capacity.
5. Manage and minimise nutrient loss from farmyards and roadways.
6. Fence off watercourses to prevent bovine access.
7. Promote targeted use of mitigation actions such as riparian margins, buffer strips and sediment traps to mitigate nutrient and sediment loss to water.
8. Maintain over-winter green cover to reduce nutrient leaching from tillage soils.

Enhancing farmers' knowledge

One of the key aspects of the campaign is to enhance farmers’ knowledge of local water quality and pollution pressures. This year, Teagasc has produced localised factsheets using EPA maps to facilitate discussions around water quality between advisors and their farmer clients. These have been well received, and cover the actions required on grassland and tillage farms, to tackle both Nitrogen and Phosphorus loads.

Read more about the Better Farming for Water Campaign here.

Nitrates Derogation renewal plan

As mentioned above, the Teagasc Better Farming Campaign – along with a number of other significant measures – were cited as being substantive actions in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s plan to progress the of retaining Irelands Nitrates Derogation post 2025.

Speaking today, following the publication of the plan titled: ‘Water and Agriculture – a collaborative approach’, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, T.D., said: “A derogation is available to Ireland based on specific scientific criteria such as a long growing season.

“The Irish Government is committed to seeking a further derogation and delivery of improvements in water quality is a critical component of supporting this request. I have secured whole of government support on delivery of these twin objectives and that is why we need a whole of agriculture approach to water quality improvement.”

The plan, which pulls together work done to date by the Agriculture Water Quality Working Group (WQG), the additional measures under the Nitrates Action Programme (NAP) and the on-going projects that will help Ireland to improve water quality and secure the derogation, is available to view on the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s website.

View the ‘Water and Agriculture - a collaborative approach’ plan here.