The European Commission has decided not to amend thresholds for poultry and pigs or to include cattle in the Industrial Emissions Directive. However, there are fears that measures on manure spreading could still impact on the livestock industry.
The directive, published in 2010, brought together seven previous directives and came out of a review of industrial emissions legislation, aiming to ensure clearer environmental benefits, the removal of ambiguities, promotion of cost effectiveness and encouragement of technical innovation.
At the time of publication, it was envisioned that some topics relevant to the directive would be reviewed. These included review of the thresholds for poultry, mixed pig and poultry farms and whether there was a need to control emissions from cattle, but these will not now be implemented.
Despite leaving the thresholds unchanged, the report states that the European Commission will be further investigating whether EU measures should be introduced for manure spreading and for combustion plants less than 50 megawatts.
Dr. Diane Mitchell, chief environmental advisor with the UK's National Farmers Union, commented: "This is a great relief for the livestock sector and we are pleased to see that commonsense has prevailed. The National Farmers Union has remained convinced that the directive is ill-suited to the agriculture sector and argued that the costs of extending the scope of the directive would have far outweighed the environmental benefits."
