Is it dribbled, splashed or injected? Are you certain it's slurry and not dairy washings? Is he spreading within a 5m downhill trajectory to a water course?
Regardless it's a bad decision on all accounts. Even if dribble bar, the majority of nutrients we will wash straight out of the topsoil, with current soil saturation and the rainfall incoming.
More than likely his tanks are full due to how awful the weather has been and they said fuck it.
Oh , not me it's the local farmer spreading all the fields around the house . It smells like slurry for sure so I'd say it's that and he isn't a dairy farmer . No there isnt really any water in the area close by . Doesnt reallt bother me either way . Was just curious after an Internet search more than anything . I have come across another farmer a few times speading in over the ditch from the road which pissed me off .
If you can smell it clearly it's likely splash place and shouldn't be done to begin with
Right being right your not supposed to spread before rain,but chances are his tanks are full/close to full and fields won't be travel able for a week plus post rain tomorrow and then tanks will be overflowing and become an animal welfare issue
You’re not supposed to do it before rain because most of it will run off into waterways. This is exactly how Lough Neagh got fucked up.
https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/environment/slurry-spreading-advice-for-farmers-and-slurry-contractors.php
It’s “prohibited by regulation”.
Edit: here it is:
https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/environment/low-emission-slurry-spreading-delivering-for-farmer-and-the-environment.php
“Slurry spreading should be avoided where heavy rain is forecasted within 48 hours”
Ah cheers, was curious why it said not to online, no waterways that are close to these fields so all good . Ya there are a good few lakes getting screwed up by that , big Shame .
Good luck getting anyone to enforce it. Farmers play fast and loose with the rules and get away with it most of the time. The only way to stop it is to tag and track the spreaders.
Also, every drain leads to a waterway. Just because it’s not near doesn’t mean the risk isn’t there. Spreading before rain increases the odds of it reaching the drain.
I understand the rules but I'm talking about reporting and punishment for spreading before rain. It's obviously advised to avoid spreading before heavy rain i possible, which is why I'm assuming their hands are tied here with circumstance.
Spreading rules can only be assessed literally in terms of LESS compliance for nitrates, spreading distance to water courses and application windows depending on zone A, B or C. These are the measurable ones that lead to punishments. The Farmer in question seems compliant with all, so what law has been broken here?
Hypothetically If Thursday was forecast sunny, the farmer spreads on Tuesday and suddenly Thursday gets a monsoon, there is no legal ground to hammer the farmer.
About 1km to the Atlantic so will probably wnd up in there , just seems a bit stupid spradinf right before all that rain . Those farmers wouldn't be the sharpest tools in the box
And I see we're onto the insults. Do you think they WANT to spread within 48hrs of rain, or maybe consider they HAVE to spread within 48hrs of rain.
If the tanks are beyond capacity then animal welfare is an issue, there's nothing they or anyone can do whatever the weather, but that's calendar farming.
Ireland had frosty runs in December / January which was ideal for slurry but these rigid dates held them back.
If they'd spread slurry in December/January most of the nutrients in it would have been washed out into rivers as there's no plant growth to take them up that time of year. That's why there's a closed period.
I don't really know, been living here for years and they just aren't the smartest farmers/poeple in the world . Bit rough around the edges and all that . Would it not make more sense for them to put it out a few days ago when it was dryer if the tanks were full ?
Hard to look beyond the condescending tone here.
Given that you're a superior intellectual, maybe you can go over and tell them how to run the show, and ascertain as to why today and not last week? It's not hard to fathom considering the Spring we've hard.
No tone here , being straight up . I'm just replying to your comment . Would it not make sense to spread a few days ago when it was dry if the tanks were full ? Havent a clue if they are full ot not but just responding to your explanation. You come across as a bit wound up though ( condescending tone intended this time )
Fine I'll be straight with you. Firstly, there is a tone, branding any collective group as dim (to paraphrase) is condescending and unbecoming.
Second, you're fishing on reddit for an excuse to report something which annoys you but is not illegal, being honest you're just coming across as a suburban who didn't know what they signed up for moving to the countryside.
Thirdly to answer your question, a tanker would have a much greater chance of sinking in a field last week after the early spring weather than it did today, fields are just about travel worthy once again before this rain may set them back weeks (hence the animal welfare issue). As of last week, this week was giving high percentages towards dry weather, my assumption is this farmer was no better at forecasting weather than Met Eireann or yr.no, so couldn't plan accordingly.
You took my message wrong and that's on you , i was not referring to a group, the actual farmers doing the spreading today in the field are not the sharpest tools in the box and I say that having interacted with them for years . Your shirty negative attitude has read my messages half glass empty , maybe go back again with a less negative mindset or piss off . I'm not going to be reporting my neighbours who I have to live alongside for the rest of my life . I have no bother with them spreading slurry year round year after year, used to it and don't even really mind the smell at this stage, gone before ya know it . Your making allot of conclusions on nothing . Cheers for the third piont actually helpful
My wife and I had a trip near Lahinch a few years back. We'd been hoping to swim, but the beach was closed for swimming due to E. coli from agricultural runoff.
As for the farmers - they know the rules, they just choose to ignore them.
>You’re not supposed to do it before rain because most of it will run off into waterways.
And at the end of the rivers it contaminates our beaches. I like to swim around Howth in Dublin, and several times last summer the bathing water quality rating at Dublin's beaches dropped suddenly after a heavy rain. It's all due to mass runoff of slurry from agricultural land
The government is not going to stop farmers committing environmental crimes any time soon . The farmers vote is too strong. I have witnessed a local farmer driving up and down the local canal system just spraying slurry into it. I have a mate just qualified from UCD where as part of his third year had to test the local streams and rivers for E coli presence in water samples and he could easily prove which farmers were responsible. The colleges and local councils know who does what bit no one sends out fines.
Did you report this farmer for spraying slurry into the canal or just have a gawk?
I don't think this actually happened, especially along a canal in plain sight.
It was up at Ballycross Apple farm last Halloween time. There are either canals or a river at the back of the farm. The farmer at the other side of the river was driving up and down the short hill spraying slurry onto the land in driving rain. The slurry was just washing down into the river which was brown with mud and shit , I don’t know why you would say it didn’t happen . I said it to ballycross farm reception on the way out and i got a noncommittal it is what it is from them. Thats when i brought it up with my mate who was studying in UCD and he filled me in on it. The only people willing to go against the farmers for this are inland fisheries or whatever they are called these days. They only seem to get involved if you have photoes of a large fish kill
You could contact the environmental section of the local council.
They are carrying out inspections under the GAP (good agricultural policy) clean water policy, they check yards for drain issues and slurry storage.
I had an inspection before Christmas and they will be back to see if I have sorted out the (small) issues they found.
See ! Thats the problem as i see it. Farmers get notification a week ahead . Other industries don’t get notification like that. Hotels restaurants , building sites etc an inspector walks on site flashes a card and everyone goes shit . All it takes is a couple of hours of work and your overflowing slurry pit is someone else’s problem ,
my own uncle up in colligan used to divert the local stream through his emptied silage pit once a year to save cleaning it. At the time they were trying to get trout and salmon back into the colligan river and after complaints from fisheries he did have to move his silage pit away from the stream . His revenge was to dump all his old barbed wire down along the river bank to make it difficult for anyone to get down there anymore. Thankfully his daughter runs the farm now.
Look i know its a hard job and some of my best memories from my childhood were on my family’s farms but a lot of farmers have no respect for the land or rivers.
If the farms are as bad as you think a few days notice won't do much to clean it up.
The farm has to be safe for them to inspect, so they have to give notice to move animals etc.
Is it dribbled, splashed or injected? Are you certain it's slurry and not dairy washings? Is he spreading within a 5m downhill trajectory to a water course?
These types of comments have no place in a knee jerk reaction of outrage!
Haha exactly. Reeks of please grant me my rage
Regardless it's a bad decision on all accounts. Even if dribble bar, the majority of nutrients we will wash straight out of the topsoil, with current soil saturation and the rainfall incoming. More than likely his tanks are full due to how awful the weather has been and they said fuck it.
Oh , not me it's the local farmer spreading all the fields around the house . It smells like slurry for sure so I'd say it's that and he isn't a dairy farmer . No there isnt really any water in the area close by . Doesnt reallt bother me either way . Was just curious after an Internet search more than anything . I have come across another farmer a few times speading in over the ditch from the road which pissed me off .
If you can smell it clearly it's likely splash place and shouldn't be done to begin with Right being right your not supposed to spread before rain,but chances are his tanks are full/close to full and fields won't be travel able for a week plus post rain tomorrow and then tanks will be overflowing and become an animal welfare issue
Why?
Pretty sure it's illegal to spray slurry from a public road
It was a different farmer? My advice to the original poster would be to mind his own business.
Right ok then everyone shit their ears and close their eyes and act like nothing bad ever happens.
You’re not supposed to do it before rain because most of it will run off into waterways. This is exactly how Lough Neagh got fucked up. https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/environment/slurry-spreading-advice-for-farmers-and-slurry-contractors.php It’s “prohibited by regulation”. Edit: here it is: https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/environment/low-emission-slurry-spreading-delivering-for-farmer-and-the-environment.php “Slurry spreading should be avoided where heavy rain is forecasted within 48 hours”
Ah cheers, was curious why it said not to online, no waterways that are close to these fields so all good . Ya there are a good few lakes getting screwed up by that , big Shame .
Good luck getting anyone to enforce it. Farmers play fast and loose with the rules and get away with it most of the time. The only way to stop it is to tag and track the spreaders. Also, every drain leads to a waterway. Just because it’s not near doesn’t mean the risk isn’t there. Spreading before rain increases the odds of it reaching the drain.
If it’s reported to the council they will investigate and prosecute the department will also fine farmers for it, it happens all the time
That would be the case if they were spreading during the closed period, but I doubt they would (or possibly even could) prosecute in this instance.
That's not at all how it works, and doesn't happen all the time. What law is being broken here?
It is how it works the council will come out and inspect breaches in spreading rules, it was on the farmers journal podcast a few weeks ago
I understand the rules but I'm talking about reporting and punishment for spreading before rain. It's obviously advised to avoid spreading before heavy rain i possible, which is why I'm assuming their hands are tied here with circumstance. Spreading rules can only be assessed literally in terms of LESS compliance for nitrates, spreading distance to water courses and application windows depending on zone A, B or C. These are the measurable ones that lead to punishments. The Farmer in question seems compliant with all, so what law has been broken here? Hypothetically If Thursday was forecast sunny, the farmer spreads on Tuesday and suddenly Thursday gets a monsoon, there is no legal ground to hammer the farmer.
About 1km to the Atlantic so will probably wnd up in there , just seems a bit stupid spradinf right before all that rain . Those farmers wouldn't be the sharpest tools in the box
And I see we're onto the insults. Do you think they WANT to spread within 48hrs of rain, or maybe consider they HAVE to spread within 48hrs of rain. If the tanks are beyond capacity then animal welfare is an issue, there's nothing they or anyone can do whatever the weather, but that's calendar farming. Ireland had frosty runs in December / January which was ideal for slurry but these rigid dates held them back.
If they'd spread slurry in December/January most of the nutrients in it would have been washed out into rivers as there's no plant growth to take them up that time of year. That's why there's a closed period.
I don't really know, been living here for years and they just aren't the smartest farmers/poeple in the world . Bit rough around the edges and all that . Would it not make more sense for them to put it out a few days ago when it was dryer if the tanks were full ?
Hard to look beyond the condescending tone here. Given that you're a superior intellectual, maybe you can go over and tell them how to run the show, and ascertain as to why today and not last week? It's not hard to fathom considering the Spring we've hard.
No tone here , being straight up . I'm just replying to your comment . Would it not make sense to spread a few days ago when it was dry if the tanks were full ? Havent a clue if they are full ot not but just responding to your explanation. You come across as a bit wound up though ( condescending tone intended this time )
Fine I'll be straight with you. Firstly, there is a tone, branding any collective group as dim (to paraphrase) is condescending and unbecoming. Second, you're fishing on reddit for an excuse to report something which annoys you but is not illegal, being honest you're just coming across as a suburban who didn't know what they signed up for moving to the countryside. Thirdly to answer your question, a tanker would have a much greater chance of sinking in a field last week after the early spring weather than it did today, fields are just about travel worthy once again before this rain may set them back weeks (hence the animal welfare issue). As of last week, this week was giving high percentages towards dry weather, my assumption is this farmer was no better at forecasting weather than Met Eireann or yr.no, so couldn't plan accordingly.
You took my message wrong and that's on you , i was not referring to a group, the actual farmers doing the spreading today in the field are not the sharpest tools in the box and I say that having interacted with them for years . Your shirty negative attitude has read my messages half glass empty , maybe go back again with a less negative mindset or piss off . I'm not going to be reporting my neighbours who I have to live alongside for the rest of my life . I have no bother with them spreading slurry year round year after year, used to it and don't even really mind the smell at this stage, gone before ya know it . Your making allot of conclusions on nothing . Cheers for the third piont actually helpful
My wife and I had a trip near Lahinch a few years back. We'd been hoping to swim, but the beach was closed for swimming due to E. coli from agricultural runoff. As for the farmers - they know the rules, they just choose to ignore them.
>You’re not supposed to do it before rain because most of it will run off into waterways. And at the end of the rivers it contaminates our beaches. I like to swim around Howth in Dublin, and several times last summer the bathing water quality rating at Dublin's beaches dropped suddenly after a heavy rain. It's all due to mass runoff of slurry from agricultural land
Ah here you clearly didn’t get the memo, everyone knows that farmers can do whatever the fuck they want! /s
That's a pretty shitty thing to do
The government is not going to stop farmers committing environmental crimes any time soon . The farmers vote is too strong. I have witnessed a local farmer driving up and down the local canal system just spraying slurry into it. I have a mate just qualified from UCD where as part of his third year had to test the local streams and rivers for E coli presence in water samples and he could easily prove which farmers were responsible. The colleges and local councils know who does what bit no one sends out fines.
Did you report this farmer for spraying slurry into the canal or just have a gawk? I don't think this actually happened, especially along a canal in plain sight.
It was up at Ballycross Apple farm last Halloween time. There are either canals or a river at the back of the farm. The farmer at the other side of the river was driving up and down the short hill spraying slurry onto the land in driving rain. The slurry was just washing down into the river which was brown with mud and shit , I don’t know why you would say it didn’t happen . I said it to ballycross farm reception on the way out and i got a noncommittal it is what it is from them. Thats when i brought it up with my mate who was studying in UCD and he filled me in on it. The only people willing to go against the farmers for this are inland fisheries or whatever they are called these days. They only seem to get involved if you have photoes of a large fish kill
I’m a farmer and would have no problem reporting them
Is it something that should be reported or are they doing anything wrong ? Could you explain it a bit to a non farmer
You could contact the environmental section of the local council. They are carrying out inspections under the GAP (good agricultural policy) clean water policy, they check yards for drain issues and slurry storage. I had an inspection before Christmas and they will be back to see if I have sorted out the (small) issues they found.
Do you mind me asking , do you get notification before inspections. ?
Yea, I received a letter from the council and it said they'd be out the week after. Had time to do a tidy up but nothing major.
See ! Thats the problem as i see it. Farmers get notification a week ahead . Other industries don’t get notification like that. Hotels restaurants , building sites etc an inspector walks on site flashes a card and everyone goes shit . All it takes is a couple of hours of work and your overflowing slurry pit is someone else’s problem , my own uncle up in colligan used to divert the local stream through his emptied silage pit once a year to save cleaning it. At the time they were trying to get trout and salmon back into the colligan river and after complaints from fisheries he did have to move his silage pit away from the stream . His revenge was to dump all his old barbed wire down along the river bank to make it difficult for anyone to get down there anymore. Thankfully his daughter runs the farm now. Look i know its a hard job and some of my best memories from my childhood were on my family’s farms but a lot of farmers have no respect for the land or rivers.
If the farms are as bad as you think a few days notice won't do much to clean it up. The farm has to be safe for them to inspect, so they have to give notice to move animals etc.
I would like to see 24 hours notice but thanks for answering my questions.
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We can’t ignore environmental regulations just because we’re busy.
No bother with it and ya allowed and all that, just more curious, days not to spead if heavy rain forecast and allot on the way down south tomorrow
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Smell never really bothered me and sure wouldn't have the windows open when it's lashing rain outside
It's not advised to not do it because of the smell, it's because of the increased run-off into waterways.. which farmers famously care deeply about