What you must do
All farmers in Northern Ireland must follow rules aimed at improving the use of nutrients on farms and reducing water pollution from agricultural sources.
You must comply with these regulations to avoid prosecution and possible fines, but also in order to meet the requirements of the cross compliance rules of the single farm payment scheme, and other direct payments from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD).
Cross compliance
Keep accurate records
You must prepare records for each calendar year by 30 June of the following year, and keep them for five years. These records must detail your:
- agricultural area, field size and location
- crop types and soil nutrient supply (SNS) index
- livestock numbers
- capacity of livestock manure storage
- use of manufactured chemical fertilisers and organic manures.
Comply with closed periods
You must not apply chemical nitrogen fertiliser from 15 September to 31 January to:
- grassland
- land that is not in grass, unless you can demonstrate that your crop needs fertiliser.
You must not apply organic manure, except dirty water, to any land between 15 October and 31 January.
You must not apply farmyard manure to any land between 31 October and 31 January.
Spread fertiliser correctly
You must apply all fertilisers, organic manure and dirty water evenly and accurately, in a way which will avoid it entering any waterways.
Slurry and dirty water can only be spread by inverted splashplate, bandspreaders, trailing hose, trailing shoe, soil injection or soil incorporation methods. You must not use sludgigator type spreaders or upper facing splashplates.
You can use chemical phosphorous fertiliser at any time of year as long as you can provide a soil analysis report which proves it is needed.
Do not apply chemical fertilisers, organic manure or dirty water when:
- soil is waterlogged, flooded or likely to flood
- soil is frozen hard or snow-covered
- heavy rain is forecast within the next 48 hours
- you have steeply sloping fields
- the land is steeply sloping with an average incline of 20% or more for grassland, or 15% or more for other land, and where other factors, such as waterways, soil conditions, ground cover and rainfall, present a significant risk of water pollution occurring.
Do not apply chemical fertilisers within 2m of any waterway.
Do not apply organic manure or dirty water within:
- 10m of a waterway, eg a river or field drain
- 15m of swallow-holes and collapse features
- 20m of lakes
- 50m of a borehole, spring or well
- 250m of a borehole used for a public water supply.
Comply with spreading limits
You must follow legal limits when spreading nitrogen. Do not apply more nitrogen fertiliser than your crop requires.
Unless you have been granted a nitrates derogation, you must not apply more than 170kg of nitrogen per hectare per year (N/ha/year) of organic manure, including manure deposited directly by livestock.
Do not apply more than:
- 50 tonnes per hectare of solid organic manure. You must wait three weeks before spreading again.
- 50 cubic metres (m3) per hectare of slurry. You must wait three weeks before spreading again.
- 50m3 per hectare of dirty water. You must wait two weeks before spreading again.
If you have a nitrates derogation you will be able to apply up to 250kg per hectare per year, as long as you apply by 1 March every year and:
- have at least 80 percent grassland
- have a farm phosphorus balance of no more than 10kg phosphorus per hectare per year
- analyse the fertility of your soil
- only apply the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus that your crops require
- produce annual fertilisation plans and keep them up to date
- submit annual records of fertilisation to the NIEA.
You can find more information on the nitrates derogation on the DARD website.
DARD: Nitrates Directive derogation summary
DARD: Nitrates Directive derogation application form
Comply with livestock manure and silage effluent storage obligations
You must provide enough storage for the livestock manure and silage effluent that you accumulate during the spreading closed period. You should account for likely adverse weather when you decide how much storage you need.
You must have enough storage for:
- 22 weeks' worth of livestock manure
- 26 weeks' worth of pig and poultry manure if you keep 10 or more breeding sows, 150 or more finishing pigs or 500 or more poultry.
You must ensure that any farmyard manure or poultry litter you store in a field is:
- stored in a compact heap
- spread in that field
- not stored for more than 180 days
- stored in a different location in the field each year
- covered with an impermeable membrane within 24 hours of being put in the field (poultry litter only)
- kept more than 20m from any waterways
- kept more than 50m from any lake, borehole, spring, well, swallow-holes and collapse features
- kept more than 250m from any borehole used for a public water supply.
You must not store poultry litter in a field after 31 March 2012.
You must ensure that all new, substantially enlarged or reconstructed facilities for storing slurry comply with the relevant regulations.
Storing slurry
Follow crop controls
After harvesting cereals (other than maize), oil seeds or grain legumes, and until 1 March the following year, you should either:
- leave the stubble of the harvested crop in the land
- sow the land with a crop which takes up nitrogen, or
- leave the soil with a rough surface and plough or disc the land to encourage rain to infiltrate.
Leave residues of late harvested crops such as maize or potatoes undisturbed until you sow the following spring.
Further information
DARD: Guidance booklet for Northern Ireland farmers on the requirements of the Nitrates Action Programme and the Phosphorous (Use in Agriculture) Regulations (Adobe PDF - 1.65MB)
DARD: Nitrates and phosphorous guidance workbook (Adobe PDF - 831KB)
DARD: Frequently asked questions on nitrates and phosphorous legislation
