Farmers must register for the new Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) fertiliser database, which will go live early next year.
This can be facilitated through the agfood portal on the department’s website.
DAFM’s Finbarr O’Regan stated on a recent Tillage Edge podcast: “When farmers go into the agportal, there will be a national fertiliser database section, which they can click into.
“Thereafter, the registration process is a ‘ticking the box’ exercise. This will allow them then to enter their opening stock. Later in the year, it will also allow them to download reports on their purchases as well.
“The farm’s herd number will be the identifier for this process. Everything we are doing is to make it as simple as possible for farmers and everyone involved.”
Fertiliser database
According to O’Regan, it was felt that using the herd number approach would be a better option from a registration point of view.
Farmers not registering for the new database will be flagged on the system. In such instances, a reminder will be sent out to the producers in question.
“We would hope that within a few months of the system being launched, all of these issues would have been addressed,” O’Regan stated.
When ordering fertiliser into the future, merchants will require the farmer’s herd number.
“This is how the purchase will show up on the system,” the DAFM representative further explained.
“The merchant is legally required to ask for the herd number. If that herd number is not registered on the national fertiliser database, this will be flagged and DAFM will, subsequently, contact [them].”
Opening and closing stock take
According to O’Regan, the farmer’s only interaction with the new register is to record an opening, and then a closing, stock at the end of each year.
“Nitrates will probably look for this information in September. The closing stock from one year, automatically, becomes the opening stock for the next,” he commented.
DAFM will put in place an email facility and, hopefully, a telephone line for farmers who have picked up any discrepancies in the reports.
Inspections linked to the new register will be carried out by DAFM staff.
“Where merchants are concerned, we know that they carry out a reconciliation during February regarding stocks of fertiliser on-site at the end of January,” O’Regan continued.
“They would have done all their own internal checks at that stage, hoping that everything balances.
“So, we are hoping in this way that very little incorrect fertiliser-related information ends up in the National Fertiliser Database.”