Recovered Nitrogen from manURE: Enabling Farmers to Engage in the Bioeconomy

The Challenge

Nutrient management is becoming a system-level issue

Irish livestock farms face growing pressure to manage nitrogen within the requirements of the Nitrates Directive. The baseline limit is 170 kg of livestock manure nitrogen per hectare each year. Eligible farms operating under a nitrates derogation may apply a higher amount, subject to specific conditions and ongoing regulatory requirements.

For intensive dairy systems, this creates practical pressures around nutrient storage, transport, land availability and the cost of moving slurry or manure. These are not simply individual farm compliance issues. They raise wider questions about nutrient distribution, renewable energy, investment and rural development.

RENURE: A Potential Pathway

Recovered nitrogen from manure

RENURE stands for REcovered Nitrogen from manURE. It refers to nitrogen fertiliser products recovered from manure through specified processing routes.

RENURE is being considered at European level as a route through which certain recovered nitrogen products could, subject to the applicable criteria, regulatory approvals and national implementation arrangements, be used as substitutes for mineral fertiliser.

For Ireland, RENURE may offer a potential pathway towards more circular nutrient management when combined with appropriate processing, transparent nutrient accounting and coordinated agricultural systems.

Shared Approaches to Nutrient Management

The potential of coordinated approaches

The presentation will consider the potential role of coordinated approaches to nutrient management, including the concept of Farmer Nutrient Hubs.

Such approaches may help connect farm-derived materials, anaerobic digestion and nutrient recovery at an appropriate scale. The session will focus on the wider strategic questions: how nutrients can be managed more effectively, where infrastructure may be needed and what conditions would support credible implementation in Ireland.

What Dr Maurice Deasy Will Cover

• Why individual farm-level nutrient export is becoming increasingly difficult and costly.
• What RENURE is, the relevant criteria and the questions that remain for implementation in Ireland.
• The potential role of nitrogen recovery within agricultural and anaerobic-digestion systems.
• How coordinated approaches may help address nutrient-management, storage and logistical pressures.
• Lessons from nutrient recovery and manure-processing approaches in Belgium and the Netherlands.
• The policy, infrastructure and collaboration needed to support credible nutrient-management solutions in Ireland.