If your farm is in Catchment Sensitive Area and produce or spread organic material such as slurry on your fields, then you may have had a letter from the Environment Agency (EA) recently about complying with the Farming Rules for Water this winter. I have discussed the rules surrounding slurry and the EAs approach in blogs before and thought it worth a quick update on recent developments.
The current situation – Farming Rules for Water
The Farming Rules for Water contain many different provisions, but for the purposes of slurry spreading they boil down to one main point – you must only apply manure and fertiliser which is planned to meet but not exceed the soil and crop nutrient needs. The EA say that there is no soil or crop need over the autumn and winter months, although they concede there are some exceptions. The EAs starting point therefore is that farmers should not be fertilising their fields over the autumn and winter at all and it will be for farmers to show that there is soil or crop need where they have spread manure or manufactured fertiliser.
Recent activity – have you received a letter from the Environment Agency?
The EA have sent out letters to those farms which they have noted spread slurry over the winter last year and may do the same this year. The letter is to remind farmers of their obligations under the Farming Rules for Water and to pre-empt breaches by explaining why the rules are in place. Or at least, that is what the EA appears to be doing on the face of it. The letter says things like “We want to work with you” and “Support is available – we really want to help you!”. In our experience the EA are a more helpful and reasonable Regulator than most, so accepting this offer of support may be your best option if you have concerns about whether you can comply with the Farming Rules for Water this winter.
However, if you have received a letter from the EA advising you of your obligations and then go ahead and spread slurry or other fertiliser on your fields without taking some precautions beforehand, then the EA will look on your case more seriously than if they had never sent a letter. The letter does refer to catchment patrols, inspection visits and potential enforcement actions where breaches are found, so the EA are live to the issue and not reluctant to enforce the regulations.
At the moment, we have been lucky with the weather as so far it is not as wet as last year so most livestock farmers will not be suffering from an additional excess of slurry in their store. We do not know what the rest of the autumn and winter will hold. The rules require livestock farmers to have a minimum of 4 months’ slurry storage capacity, but the EA recommends having enough capacity for 6 months’ storage.
What to do if you may not have enough slurry storage capacity
If you anticipate that you will not have enough storage capacity, you have a few options beyond doing nothing about it:
- Contact the EA now and tell them. They may be able to advise you on solutions.
- Get soil sampling done on your fields to determine the nutrient need. If it turns out that your soil does have a nutrient deficit and would benefit from some organic fertiliser, then you may be able to justify spreading over the winter if you do it responsibly.
- Invest in a larger slurry store. The EA have said there will be a new round of funding and grants available soon.
If you have any questions or concerns about the EA’s Farming Rules for Water, if you think you have breached the rules or if you have had correspondence or enforcement action from the EA, please get in tough with our Regulatory Team who will be happy to help.