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Opinion Why don't we regulate farms like we do pharmaceuticals?

Environmental campaigner Pádraic Fogarty says farming is the elephant in Ireland’s climate room, and we should therefore be better regulating it.

AGRICULTURE IS IRELAND’S dirtiest business: the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, the biggest source of pollution in our waterways and the biggest driver of species extinction on land.

recent investigation by The Journal Investigates revealed that the majority of county councils are failing to meet farm inspection targets for slurry management but this is just the latest in a ceaseless trickle of negative headlines from the sector.

If it’s not water pollution, it’s ballooning rates of TB in cattle and the needless mass killing of badgers, mistreatment of cattle during live exports or accusations of egregious conflicts of interest between state agencies and the livestock industry.

Agriculture is unique in this regard; no other industrial sector provides such a constant churn of stories painting it in a bad light. Any other industry would have by now recognised the steady gnawing away at its reputation as a threat to survival.

Not agriculture, it seems. Their industry representatives seem content to be on the defensive, forever trying to convince the public that they are responding to the pollution crisis while playing down the range of negative impacts. 

Yet, it doesn’t have to stay this way. There is a way for agriculture to break out of its doom loop, get out of the headlines and become just like any other commercial sector. 

Making a sector answerable

Just look at pharmaceuticals. Here is an industry that, by its very nature, is transporting and consuming huge quantities of potentially dangerous substances and so has plenty of scope for poisoning water or polluting the air. But despite the fact that pharmaceuticals generate a lot more income than agriculture and employ a similar number of people, this sector is not burdened with the reputation of a chronic polluter. 

The reason is regulation. Every pharmaceutical plant is subject to an ‘integrated pollution control’ licence from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as a range of other audits from statutory and non-statutory bodies. For instance, it’s pretty standard for pharmaceutical or chemical plants to be enrolled in voluntary measures for the continual improvement of environmental performance (ISO14001, for instance, an internationally verified standard). This is a burden for the industry but one which they have adapted to and, ultimately, see as adding value to their companies, both in terms of reputation and reducing costs. 

Farmers are also subject to audits and inspections; however, these are not effective in managing the issues of environmental damage. Farm organisations will baulk at the notion that more regulation is a solution to their woes. The president of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), Francie Gorman, recently said that “farmers must be allowed to farm, reducing the red tape and the growing administrative burden they face year-on-year”. 

The wrong direction

Efforts to present this sector as overburdened with regulation have met with some success. New reforms from Brussels have reduced the number of inspections on smaller farms, while a proposal from the last Commission, a part of the ‘Green Deal’, to include the livestock industry in the Industrial Emissions Directive was dropped following pressure from the farm lobby. The IFA said at the time that the proposal, which would have seen licensing of larger dairy and beef farms, was “driven by ideology”. 

However, the result is more headlines like the one from The Journal Investigates on how county councils are reluctant to carry out the few inspections of farms that are required of them and, of course, the continued bad news about water pollution and failure to reach targets in greenhouse gas emissions. This trajectory may well see the loss of the nitrates derogation and the continued uncertainty and reputational damage that goes with that. The perception of the farming sector as being happy to dump pollution onto society as a whole ultimately undermines public support for it. This is something which is essential for them as they seek more public support for the CAP in the coming years. 

We should stop looking at large farms like something from a children’s story book and see them like we would a pharmaceutical plant or any other industrial installation. A strict system of licensing and control for agriculture, and particularly the dairy industry, would bring them into line with other sectors and reduce pollution. This means better regulation, not necessarily more. 

Instead of opposing this, farm organisations should be promoting it. They are keen to tell us that their business model is sustainable; this would be an opportunity to prove it.

Pádraic Fogarty is an environmental campaigner. 

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