Summary
The Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has published a Consultation on the draft Ammonia Strategy for Northern Ireland.
Agriculture makes a significant contribution to the Northern Ireland economy, however it also produces 97% of current ammonia emissions. Therefore, action on ammonia is required urgently to support our local farm businesses and rural communities and help them to thrive and be sustainable, while at the same time protecting our environment.
With ammonia having the potential to impact various aspects of society we would encourage participation
Documents
- Draft Ammonia Strategy
- Consultee letter Ammonia Strategy
- Draft Ammonia Strategy Consultation Easyread
- Equality and Disability Duties Screening
- Habitats Regulations Assessment screening
- Rural Needs Impact Assessment
- Regulatory Impact Assessment
- Strategic Environmental Assessment screening
- Ammonia strategy consultation presentation
- Ammonia Strategy Consultation Report
- Ammonia Strategy Consultation High Level Report
Consultation description
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is delighted to present this Consultation on the draft Ammonia Strategy for Northern Ireland and looks forward to hearing your views.
This draft strategy was developed under the leadership of the former DAERA Minister and it will help us plan the way forward to reduce ammonia emissions from agriculture. In DAERA, we recognise that we do not have all the answers and this consultation will help us strengthen the draft strategy with your help.
We welcome your views and we have posed questions throughout the draft strategy. We are keen to have as many responses as possible to these questions and any other practical and affordable ideas or suggestions. There is more information on page 6 about how to take part in the consultation and your responses will be used to inform a reworked draft Ammonia Strategy for an incoming Minister and new Executive to consider.
We are also developing a Call for Evidence to inform a new operational protocol to assess the impacts of air pollution on the natural environment and we aim to publish this separately in 2023.
Details of stakeholder engagement events
DAERA have hosted five public information meetings at the Greenmount, Enniskillen and Loughry Campuses to outline the content of the recently released DAERA Draft Ammonia Strategy. Details can be found in the document above:
- Ammonia strategy consultation presentation
Existing resources
A series of three online seminars on ammonia with leading experts, organised by DAERA in September 2020, are still available for you to view at Effects of air pollution on natural ecosystems: science and evidence publications | daera-ni.gov.uk.
The report on atmospheric ammonia assessments on six designated sites in Northern Ireland. (Year 1: June 2020 – May 2021) is available at https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/533585/1/N533585CR.pdf
The publication on the MACC data - The Cost of Reducing Ammonia from Agriculture: Farm-gate Estimates and Policy Considerations is available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1746-692X.12331
Articles on Monitoring Atmospheric Ammonia at Hillsborough, the AFBI Hillsborough Ammonia Monitoring Blog, Ammonia Emission Sources and Impacts, High Resolution Ammonia Monitoring at AFBI Hillsborough and FAQs are available at https://www.afbini.gov.uk/articles/monitoring-atmospheric-ammonia-hillsborough
A report on scenario modelling, testing the potential impact of ammonia (NH3) mitigation measures on atmospheric emissions, concentrations and deposition on Northern Ireland-wide and spatially targeted options near designated sites can be found through the following link Scenario modelling - spatial targeting of ammonia mitigation measures in Northern Ireland - NERC Open Research Archive
This public consultation is open for a period of 8 weeks until 23:59, 3 March 2023. We encourage you to respond as early as possible. We welcome views from all sectors, age-groups, organisations, and individuals.
We plan to host consultation events where you can obtain more information on the consultation. These will be updated on this page in due course.
Ways to respond
Consultation closed — responses are no longer being accepted.