Cost of food production set to rise

The cost of household staples such as chicken, turkey, tomatoes and cucumbers could rise after MEPs voted to increase costs and red tape for poultry farmers under new revised environmental controls meant for heavy industry.

If proposals under the revised Integrated Pollution Prevention Control (IPPC) Directive go ahead:

• Poultry thresholds will be lowered bringing in more poultry units;

• Equivalent nitrogen excretion rates will be used to determine whether further pig and poultry are brought under control;

• On-farm feed mills and liquid feed preparation units will be brought into the scope of the Directive;

• Spreading manure off the site of the unit will also covered;

• Combustion plants that use heat/thermal input between 20 and 50 megawatts will be affected, impacting on the protected edibles sector.

In addition, farmers currently operating under the IPPC Directive will be burdened further with additional monitoring, reporting requirements and inspections.

NFU Deputy President Meurig Raymond said: "We are still questioning whether the IPPC Directive is the most effective way to control emissions from our sector. The Directive was borne out of a piece of legislation designed with industrial plants in mind and agriculture and horticulture do not lend themselves to the same mechanisms of control.

"Instead of voting to reduce the impact of the proposals, MEPs on the Environment Committee have opted to vote in favour of increasing the burden, cost and bureaucracy for agriculture and horticulture at a time when food security and food production is of increasing national importance.

"The proposals to include new lower thresholds for poultry units are particularly disappointing, but especially more so that seasonal turkey production will now be brought under new and extensive controls which will have an impact on costs. It just makes no sense that a farm producing Christmas turkeys for sale at the farm gate will be regulated in the same way as say a power station.

"The NFU will be focusing its lobbying efforts on MEPs in advance of the next critical vote in plenary in March. We have to press home the message that agriculture and horticulture are very different to other sectors covered by the legislation and these new proposals will result in farming businesses going under at a time when we should be doing all we can to protect jobs."