Managing the Rural Environment

Members growing cereals should look at the new Fertiliser Manual, available on the Tried & Tested website.

It gives the latest research so that nutrients can be applied with minimum waste and environmental damage. It has been produced with CLA input. Read the full background here. (June 2010)

CLA Policy On The Environment

The rural environment is a key issue for the CLA. All of our members work on or surrounded by the rural environment, as providers of fibre, food, fuel, game, habitats, landscapes, minerals, rural tourism, timber, land and buildings. They have a real desire to preserve its value for future generations.

The CLA calls on government to:

• Encourage the efficient use of water in agriculture,
• Promote reservoirs on farms by deregulating their use where there is no significant risk to human safety, and
• Introduce a more flexible licensing system for storage so that abstraction can take advantage of high flows.

Other CLA Environment web pages:

• Climate Change
• Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk
• Fly-Tipping

News:

CLA talks to Governement about changes to Environmental Stewardship

The President of the CLA has written a joint letter with other industry partners to the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food following the European Court of Auditors concluding that Environmental Stewardship is non-compliant with European regulations.

The industry has questioned why the Court of Auditors and the Rural Development Programme (RDP) teams in Europe are effectively operating in a total vacuum from one another with the RDP team effectively signing off ‘illegal’ programmes. This results in Member States suffering costly disallowance penalties with further public money having to be used to put the programmes right. All of which could be avoided if the schemes were checked and found to be ‘legal’ from the onset. The industry have asked the Government what it is proactively doing to manage the Commissions own competence in this area. (Updated 20 August 2010.)

Please see agricultural environment professional advice page for information as to how this may affect you.

Environmental Stewardship and the Public Spending Review

The CLA’s Conservation Adviser Claire Collyer has met with senior Defra officials to discuss ways to make the schemes more effective, both in terms of cost savings and delivering environmental outcomes. She highlighted that Environmental Stewardship (ES) has been a great success since it allowed farmers and land managers to embed integrated environmental management into their businesses, leading to more than 69 percent of farmland covered by some form of scheme by the end of June 2010.   Further information can be found in the latest Working for You, Edition 100.  (Updated 20 August 2010.)

Revised maps of Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ)

Defra's revised maps of Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ), reducing the area affected by nine percent, are a huge boost for hundreds of farmers. The change comes after hard lobbying by the CLA for land which was wrongly included in the NVZ to be taken out.

CLA Head of Environment Derek Holiday said: "This affects 18 catchments across England. Hundreds of farmers would otherwise have faced increased costs, particularly for the storage of slurry."

He warned that members should check the revised mpas carefully. Around 350 appeals against inclusion in the NVZ were upheld last year and the land has been removed from the zones.

In some cases, a body of water had wrongly been identified as polluted. All land draining into that water has also been removed from the NVZ. (Updated: 18 May 2010.)

Find maps of the NVZs

Report Fly-tipping - Don't Suffer In Silence

The CLA urges all members in the West Midlands and the North-West to report fly-tipping on their land to their regional offices. The pilot project recording incidents on private land has been extended to September.

If private owners forget to report incidents, the Government is likely to gain a false picture of the incidence of fly-tipping. Please ring your regional office if it happens on your land, so that they can report it, via The Landowner Partnership Project, onto the Flycapture database.

We have had some success in reporting incidents, but many remain unreported. The CLA is trying to address fly-tipping issues with Defra and the Environment Agency. Derek Holliday has re-emphasised the CLA's three-point plan to combat the problem at a meeting of he National Fly-Tipping and Prevention Group.

The CLA continues to lobby ministers to:

• Ensure local authorities accept fly-tipped waste without charge to landowners,
• Stop prosecution of those who have waste, especially hazardous waste, dumped on their land, and
• Create a policy framework so that local authorities work with police and other bodies on a zero-tolerance approach to perpetrators.

Private Water Supplies - New Regulation Means More Costs

If you are a member drinking water from your own well, a borehole or a spring, or using water from someone other than a licensed water supplier, your local authority (LA) will soon be in touch. LAs now have to carry out risk assessments, for which you will pay - probably around £150, though the maximum is set at £500. (February 2010)

Read our guidance note on the new Private Water Supplies Regulation (members only).

Agriculture Industry Greenhouse Gas Action Plan

This action plan, published on 10 February 2010, gives an initial framework to show how agriculture could make its greenhouse gas (GHG) savings. The Government is seeking national emission cuts across all sectors of 18 percent from 2008 levels by 2020.

The agricultural industry must achieve substantial voluntary reductions by 2012, or the Government may impose regulations. This means finding reductions of three million tonnes CO2 (or equivalent) or 11 percent reduction of GHG by 2020.

It is important that our agricultural sector in England and Wales remains strong as we work towards these reductions. If not, we will simply export food production and emissions to other countries.

Savings will come from efficiency

Most savings must come from higher efficiency, rather than reduced food production. More food will be needed in coming years to feed a vastly bigger population. The industry will need to:

• Improve the use of nutrients for crops,
• Change livestock diets,
• Improve animal housing and health,
• Improve management of manures and soils,
• Use anaerobic digestors, and
• Use fuel and energy more efficiently and substitute low-carbon renewable fuels where possible.

At present, agriculture in the UK produces about seven percent of UK greenhouse gas. Of these about:

• 3.5 percent is nitrous oxide from the soil, much of it an inevitable part of using fertilisers, organic or mineral,
• 2.8 percent is methane, mainly from livestock and some from manure and slurry, and
• 0.7 percent is carbon dioxide, from energy use by vehicles, machinery, heating and so on.

The Government asked the Climage Change Taskforce, which was set up by the CLA, the National Farmers Union and the Agricultural Industries Confederation in 2007, to develop this voluntary plan. It gives a framework to show how savings could be made, and indicators to measure them.

Read the full report: Agriculture Industry GHG Action Plan: Framework for Action.

New Guidance on Uplands ELS for Landlords, Tenants and Commoners

The Tenancy Reform Industry Group has issued a new guidance document on the transition for landlords and tenants to the Uplands Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) scheme. This covers the end of the Hill Farm Allowance and the move to the new support. Defra gives full details - download this TRIG guidance from their page - following their link. Farmers can enter this scheme from 1 July 2010. (February 2010.)

New guidance has also been published for commoners in the uplands by Natural England - dowload it from their ELS page.

Changes to the Environmental Stewardship Scheme

From 1 February 2010, the new 3rd Edition Environmental Stewardship Handbooks for Entry Level Stewardship (ELS), Organic Entry Level Stewardship (OELS) and Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) became operational as the legal basis for ES agreements. More details from www.naturalengland.org.uk

CLA Environment Guidance Notes

CLA Government Responses

Links to external websites

Defra: www.defra.gov.uk

Environment Agency: www.environment-agency.gov.uk

Natural England: www.naturalengland.org.uk

Voluntary Initiative: www.voluntaryinitiative.org.uk

Environment sensitive farming: http://www.environmentsensitivefarming.co.uk/

Farm Wildlife: Events, Case Studies and Discussion Forums for farmers helping wildlife on their land: www.farmwildlife.info

Farming Futures: http://www.farmingfutures.org.uk/