Preparing for a Local Authority Farm Inspection

Local authorities across the country carry out farm inspections under the National Agricultural Inspection Programme (NAIP) and is a core part of Ireland’s approach to protecting water quality from agricultural pressures by inspecting farms for compliance with the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) regulations.

Inspections occur in priority areas where water quality is not meeting good status.

The recently published NAIP report for 2025 highlighted that 67% of the 4,315 inspections were found to comply with the GAP regulations. The remaining 43% were found to be non-compliant and required follow up actions by the farmers to resolve the issues identified.

The graphic below shows the most common issues for non-compliance found on farms in 2025; source The National Agricultural Inspection Programme Summary Report 2025:

The graphic highlights the main areas of non-compliance identified by local authorities during farm inspections in 2025, with issues relating to the management of farmyard manure representing the most common concern.

Uncontrolled runoff from farmyard manure (FYM) was by far the largest issue, significantly higher than any other category.

Other frequently identified problems included inadequate gutters and downpipes and failure to keep clean and dirty water properly segregated, silage storage, slurry storage, and slurry management, while issues relating to organic fertiliser spreading were also identified.

Overall, the findings indicate that controlling runoff, managing dirty water, and maintaining adequate manure, silage and slurry storage infrastructure remain the key priorities for reducing agricultural impacts on water quality.

Farmers can take actions to reduce the likelihood of non-compliances on their farms by making improvements on areas like repairing damaged gutters and downpipes, improved clean water diversions, improved collection and storage facilities for organic manures, observing the closed period and required buffer margins when spreading slurry and supplementary feeding.

Farmers looking for assistance pre or post a NAIP inspection are advised to contact their local Teagasc advisor.

For further details on the National Agricultural Inspections, watch a recent Signpost Series webinar featuring Michael Martin, Senior Inspector with the EPA, below:

For more on water quality, visit the Better Farming for Water Campaign webpage.