Jeremy's Blog 17th February 2023: Government, Farming and Water Quality

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th February 2023

Aid and regulation, stick and carrot, are Government’s main tools for achieving its statutory and demanding environmental targets, confirmed in December and affirmed by the Environmental Improvement Plan 2023. DEFRA January prospectus for the schemes offered in 2023 and 2024 shows us the aid and the carrot. We should not forget that role of regulations and the stick, becoming more potent as we near the 2030 dates for key targets.

Alongside halting and then reversing the decline in species abundance, the target that bears most on farming and rural land management is for water quality:

“Reduce nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and sediment pollution from agriculture into the water environment by at least 40% by 2038, compared to a 2018 baseline.”

Ammonia from slurry and fertilisers affects air quality and SSSIs. The challenge is large.

The targets are to be monitored by the Office for Environmental Protection (now seeking to intervene in a Supreme Court case). The Government can be taken to judicial review over air and water quality, as over the protection of Poole Harbour as a Special Protection Area. The first steps have been taken for judicial review of the interpretation of the Farming Rules for Water, potentially based on the Wye. Wider public concern adds to the pressure: the Times is now running its Clean It Up water campaign, reporting on agriculture as well as water companies and giving coverage to local campaigns.

Farming is not shielded by the exposure of the water companies. The Environment Act, after heavy public campaigning, forces heavy investment in reducing storm overflows. The Levelling Up Bill would require sewage works to serve the developments already connected with low nutrient discharges. Policy is for new developments then to handle their own waste.

For farming, DEFRA, also giving grants for equipment, is now developing the next round of the Slurry Infrastructure Scheme, drawing on lessons from the recent round with its substantial offer of money to achieve six months covered storage. Half of stores are thought inadequate and half of N and a third of P not to be used effectively. The CAAV has been feeding in points from planning issues to how it was explained as well as more specific practical points. In time, this could look beyond slurry systems more widely, including how arable farms handle manures.

From this summer, SFI is to offer a Nutrient Management standard with options for an adviser supported assessment with follow up reviews and for legume cover. Other standards and measures in Countryside Stewardship could also help protect watercourses.

Then there is regulation which, outside the EU, can now be re-written afresh and more directly. All Wales is now an NVZ; Scotland virtually so while effectively removing grandfather rights for pre-1991 slurry stores. Storage requirements can be expected to rise and, once required legally, would not be supported by grants.

With the role of nutrient management, anyway made salient by prices, other routes include improving management knowledge and skill as well as encouraging nutrient movement for better use, whether muck/straw deals or, following digestate, perhaps as ash or pellets.

The 2015 Consent Order from the Poole Harbour judicial review requires measures that will be effective in reducing the nutrients in the Harbour area. With water treatment works now improved, attention is now on sharply reducing the run-off from arable and livestock farming in the 350 square miles of its Dorset catchment, on a path to 2030. At this stage, the court has accepted the measures being taken but the powers in reserve include a mandatory Water Protection Zone or use of Environmental Permitting Regulations. Farmers would be on notice of what is seen to cause pollution and, if now “knowingly” polluting could face fines or prison.