Noel Meehan, Manager of the Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advice Programme (ASSAP) joins Catherine Egan on this week’s episode of the Beef Edge to discuss the progress of the programme and what you can do to help improve water quality.

Farming plays an important role in the Irish economy and landscape and approximately two-thirds of the Irish land area is in agricultural use. The quality of the water in our rivers, lakes and groundwater needs to improve and farming practices play a key role in this improvement.

Noel states that the programme is a unique collaborative approach and has keen interest and involvement from farmers. Most often it’s a combination of approaches really and not a one size fits all approach when it comes to water quality.

Noel gives some simple useful tips to improve water quality such as:

- improved nutrient management with more targeted use of slurry and fertiliser

- new approaches to land management to reduce nutrient losses in critical source areas

- better farmyard management and practices

For further information on the ASSAP programme go to:

https://www.teagasc.ie/environment/water-quality/farming-for-water-quality-assap/assap-in-detail/

For further information on The Signpost Series visit:

https://www.teagasc.ie/corporate-events/sustainable-agriculture-webinars/

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

teagasc.ie/thebeefedge