We are reminding farmers that the deadline to submit records of slurry and all other organic manures exported from farms during 2021 is 31 January 2022. Any farm exporting slurry, chicken litter or manure to another farm must submit this information online to the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) by the 31 January 2022.
We would ask those who need to take action to start to gather the information we can assist farmers with this. If the records are not submitted to NIEA, the slurry export will not be included when calculating a farm’s nitrogen loading. Farmers could then find themselves in breach of the rules and they could also face a higher risk of inspection.
Under the Nutrients Action Programme (NAP) for Northern Ireland (NI), farmers must be able to show they meet the 170 kg of organic nitrogen per hectare limit over a year. This is effectively a stocking limit and while in NI over 90 percent of farms are working under this limit, those that are over the 170kgN/ha/year must take action to ensure cross compliance penalties are avoided.
If a farm’s livestock manure limit is above 170kg/ha/year in order to comply a farm can do one of the following:
🔹 Apply for a nitrates derogation to operate at up to 250kgN/ha/year (grazing livestock only). Application forms must be submitted to NIEA on or before 1 March and the additional requirements met
🔹 Farm more eligible land (must be on Single Application Form (SAF))
🔹 Reduce livestock number
🔹 Export slurry / litter / manure – a record of this must be submitted to NIEA by 31 January
Those farmers who opt to export slurry to meet the 170kgN/ha/year limit, must record exports and submit the information online to NIEA by 31 January for the previous calendar year. Records sent to NIEA must cover the date moved, type of livestock manure, quantity (tonnes or cubic metres), the transporter’s name and address, and the importers name and business ID.
Farmers with an approved derogation have until 1 March to submit the export manure information along with their Fertilisation Accounts.
