5. Reflections on practicalities of implementing the Nitrate Directive

It shall be emphasized that existing statistical data on livestock farming in Poland are not detailed enough to allow making a complete and fully reliable assessment of the animal wastes management and investment requirements. By the necessity the analyses presented in the report to some extent were based on the experts’ knowledge and unavoidable assumptions and estimates.

There is no doubt that the animal wastes management in Polish livestock farms requires significant improvements. On the other hand it seems, that the scale of problems as related to potential environmental threats is sometimes overstated.

The conclusions, which might be drawn from the analysis and reflections on practicalities of implementing the Nitrate Directive are the following:

1.      In general in Poland there is no difficulty with meeting the Nitrate Directive limitation on the maximum amount of 170 kg of Nitrogen per hectare applied with animal wastes. The stocking rate on average is low and diminishing in Poland. It could be even stated, that for the major part of Polish soils, which are sandy and containing a low amounts of organic matter increased fertilization with manure would mainly be beneficial for improving the soil fertility. There is a possibility of locally high livestock concentration. Also specific problems occur in industrial type of pig and poultry farms with a very large scale of production (eg. 36000 fatteners).

2.      Solid manure, which creates less environmental threats than slurry, is spread on about 90% of total area fertilised with animal wastes.

3.      Without any doubts storing of animal wastes requires significant improvements and investments. The main problems related to storage facilities are: lack of such facilities at all in a relatively high number of small farms and poor technical condition of the existing facilities (highly probable is that in most cases new ones should be constructed).

4.      In a group of farms, mainly of medium size, partial investments would sufficiently improve the wastes storage (dung plate or dung water tank).

5.      For a number of reasons the most problematic and difficult in terms of finding satisfying solutions is the situation of smallest farms:

·        Farmers because of lack of cash and uncertainty about their future will not make any investments voluntarily;

·        Law regulations set limitations for constructing facilities such as for wastes storage related to minimal distance to the farmyard borders. Because of the small size of parcels and condensed buildings the legal constraint is very strong for a large number of farms and villages;

·        Offering substantial support to the smallest farms for investments should be questioned from the macroeconomic perspective.

·        It should be emphasized, however, that regionally, mainly in hilly areas and in large, condensed villages, animal wastes may create a serious environmental threat especially in locations where the source of drinking water are local wells.      

6.      It is difficult to determine number of farms lacking proper storage facilities. According to Central Statistic Office (GUS) about 30% of farms is equipped with complete installations and 50% has no facilities at all. This information, which is based on unverified statements of farmers raises some doubts, especially if a quality of existing installations is taken into account.

Equally difficult is to predict future requirements for installations, due to the possible changes in the farms’ structure. If the existing trends will continue and processes of specialisation, increasing scale of production will be accelerated, a greater livestock concentration in medium size farms might be expected.

7.      Under the new law, introduced in 1993, all newly established buildings for livestock must be equipped with adequate animal waste storage facilities. This improves the situation especially in larger farms investing in developing livestock sector.

There are also pilot projects, serving in part for dissemination purposes, of installing storage facilities in different regions of Poland:

·        project realised by Institute for Land Reclamation and Grassland Farming, - about 100 installations have been made in Ostroleka region; financed by USDA.

·        The National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management program „Environment protection in rural areas” (2000-2002) – 1200 installations in 4 regions of Poland: Lomza and Ostroleka, Torun, Elblag, Siedlce; program is finansed by the National Fund in international organisations, mainly from the Baltic Sea region;

·        “Mini-grants” program – from 6 up to 10 installations in each of former vojevodships; financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and regional Environmental Funds.

8.      Regarding the size and capacities of installations in Polish climate it should allow storage for the period of 6 months. The most required investments are for a medium size farms: dung plates – 52 m2, dung water tanks – 45 m³, and large farms for slurry tanks with capacity 500 m^3.

Farms below 5 –7 hectares would require a large number of smaller installations. However, taking into account that the economic sense of such investments is questionable, as well as because of lack of financial resources in small farms, which is a strong obstacle, a strong demand can not be expected.

9.      An attention should be paid to the quality of installations – investments made as cheaply as possible just for fulfilling the law requirements can be in fact wasted, if because of poor quality (eg. leaking tanks or dung plates) the environmental threats were not practically eliminated;      

10.  According to the survey conducted on two large samples the level of ecological awareness of farmers[1] is low. Some farmers don’t associate animal wastes with environmental threats, there is also a strong belief in the “natural” character of manure. It might be expected that because of that any pressure on farmers could be treated as unnecessary and costly annoyance. This leads to the conclusion that educational activities should precede the investment programmes, including techniques of proper application of animal waste fertilizers in different farming conditions.

[1] Jakosc zarzadzania w gospodarstwach rolniczych w Polsce (Quality of management in Polish Farms) edit .E.Majewski,  SGGW 2001