The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) called on farmers to prioritise how they treat slurry.

IFA environment chair, John Murphy, urged farmers to invest in extra slurry storage, to give them control over when they can spread, while speaking on a panel at the Irish Farmers Journal Dairy Day.

“You should treat it like cutting your silage or milking your cows. It’s a very important task and it should be done in a timely fashion,” he said.

In addition, Dutch dairy farmer, Auko Sikkenga, discussed how his country is losing its derogation, which he said is due to the number of rivers running through the country making the Netherlands “the sewer of Europe”. He added that Ireland should keep the derogation because the country can manage a lot of its environmental factors.

“New Zealand and Ireland are on their own, you’re an island, you know what goes in and what gets out.”

Driving home the message of increasing slurry storage, Murphy said if Ireland lost its derogation, there would still be environmental regulations to deal with.

“This thing will keep moving on. We have frameworks and directives coming in all the time and water and air quality. It’s not a solution to drop the derogation and let us just farm on.”