Farmers and the wider agricultural industry have the opportunity to make a meaningful change to Ireland’s water quality. That was a key message delivered by Director of Research in Teagasc, Professor Pat Dillon at the EPA Water Conference 2025, held on Thursday, June 12th.

For this to come to fruition, however, practice change at farm level and continued stakeholder collaboration across existing water quality programmes is required.

The solution to this is the implementation of the Better Farming for Water Campaign, with Professor Dillon noting that it “strives to support and accelerate the adoption of actions on all farms – but particularly in locations where agriculture is a significant pressure – to improve water bodies to good or high ecological status.”

Built upon 8-Actions for Change, the Better Farming for Water Campaign is following a catchments approach to deliver improvements to water quality, focusing on the Bandon, Lee, Blackwater, Suir, Nore, Barrow, Slaney and the Boyne catchments – eight areas that were classified as being ‘Catchments of Concern’ due to high nitrate concentrations by the EPA. And, leading the water quality improvement charge in these catchments will be the recently appointed Teagasc River Catchment Co-ordinators.

Farmer actions

Along with providing an overview of the Teagasc Better Farming for Water Campaign, Professor Dillon delved further into actions that farmers can take – regardless of their enterprise or location – to bring about an improvement in water quality.

“All farmers can take actions to improve water quality,” Professor Dillon noted, “and the implementation of the Better Farming for Water Campaign sets a framework, centring on important areas such as nutrient management, farmyard manure and land management to do so.”

Nutrient management

From a nutrient management perspective, Professor Dillon discussed the importance of reducing purchased nitrogen and phosphorus surpluses at farm level, leveraging tools such as:

• AgNav to support a reduction in nitrogen balance,
• Increased and targeted use of organic manures to reduce the reliance on chemical N,
• Optimisation of soil fertility – starting with the correction of soil pH before addressing phosphorus and potassium deficiencies – to facilitate increased nitrogen use efficiency and to allow for greater incorporation of white clover within grazing swards,
• PastureBase Ireland to increase nutrient use efficiency.

Farmyard management

On the topic of farmyard management, Professor Dillon strongly encouraged farmers to survey their current slurry storage capacity and potential areas for point source pollution. Surveying the former, he explained, is important based on current grant support and the eminent exemption from planning.

“Preliminary findings from the Teagasc National Slurry Storage Monitoring Programme, led by Dr. Pat Tuohy, point to the need for approximately 20% more slurry storage on farms.

“Although the second year of this study is underway to verify this result, increasing slurry storage capacity at farm level has many advantages, namely: maximising the fertiliser replacement value of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium; reducing nutrients lost to water; and reducing nitrogen surplus on farms by replacing chemical nitrogen fertilisers,” Professor Dillon commented.

Point source pollution from farmyards and roadways can be a significant source of nutrients and sediment to water. Again, referring to initial findings from the Teagasc National Slurry Storage Monitoring Programme, Professor Dillon said that significant amounts of water are entering storage tanks, somewhere in the region of 20-40L/cow/week. Taking action – such as ensuring that gutters and downpipes are in working order, diverting clean rainwater away and by reducing soiled areas within the farmyard – can reduce the potential for challenges to water quality occurring.

“Where required, Teagasc is advising farmers to develop a plan to upgrade their infrastructure to reduce nutrient loss while also taking cognisance of labour efficiency,” Professor Dillon added.

Land management

A key pillar of the 8-Actions for Change within the Better Farming for Water Campaign, Professor Dillon also discussed the key actions farmers can take to improve water quality through land management. Some key actions include:

• All livestock should be prevented from accessing waterways,
• Buffer zones, riparian margins and sediment traps should be incorporated to reduce over land flow loss to waterways,
• Over-winter green cover is essential in reducing nitrate leaching from tillage ground.

Through the Better Farming for Water EIP, there is funding available to farmers to implement many of these actions on their farms. Farmers should contact their local ASSAP advisor immediately on how they can avail of these financial supports.

In his concluding comments to the EPA Water Conference 2025, Professor Dillon noted that water quality in Ireland is good in an EU context, but there are significant opportunities for improvement. For these improvements to occur, the adoption of the 8-Actions for Change will require changes to farm practices while being integrated into the farm system.

Download Professor Pat Dillon’s presentation in the below link (PDF):Putting the Better Farming for Water Campaign into Action Focus on the Blackwater Catchment

For more information on the Teagasc Better Farming for Water Campaign, visit here.