The Agromuralla ranchers’ association, which groups together milk producers from the provinces of Lugo and A Coruña, has requested a “revision” of the new regulations that will regulate the management of slurry on farms, because otherwise it could “lead to close to 50% of small farms “.
The president of Agromuralla, Roberto López, affirms that the new decree on fertilization that the central government wants to approve supposes “a jug of cold water” for the Galician agricultural and livestock sector and warns of the dire consequences that it can have for farms, both milk like canre.
“If the Royal Decree is carried out on January 1 as it is written today, if the allegations that are presented are not accepted, we can almost assure that 50% of the small farms in Galicia will close, because compliance with the regulations is unfeasible in many cases, ”added Roberto López.
According to his criteria, the application of the rules contemplated in the new regulations is “impossible” in Galicia “due to the orography”, but also because “it will be economically unaffordable for small farms”, which would have to make a very high expense “to adapt their equipment to the new slurry application systems ”.
According to his calculations, it would force “to adapt or replace more than 20,000 tanks that are currently in Galicia”, which “would punish the 7,000 farms that are producing milk” in the Autonomous Community.
In fact, the costs of this new regulation figure between “9,000 and 120,000 euros” of investment per operation.
For this reason, this group calls for a revision of the regulations, “because dairy farms, which make use of slurry as fertilizer, cannot be treated the same as” pig farms, for example, “which they generate a lot of waste and have no “where to dump it, because they lack agricultural land.”
Likewise, they ask for a “direct aid” plan so that farmers have liquidity with which to face new expenses.
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