New heavy-handed water regulations could drive farmers out of business

Incidents

Bernard Griffiths, land use policy officer at the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW), sits on the Wales Land Management Forum and the sub-group which was set up by Ms Griffiths to look specifically at agricultural pollution.

He said the Welsh Government was pushing for the changes as a result of media interest in agricultural pollution incidents, of which there are between 140 and 150 every year.

But former NFU Cymru president Stephen James, who chairs two stakeholder groups focused on the issue, claimed the changes would not lead to a cut in pollution.

“All this regulation is not going to guarantee pollution incidents dropping,” he said.

“We have already got a lot of the regulations which theoretically should stop pollution, but pollution is driven by extreme situations or accidents.”

This view is supported by statistics, which show no discernible rise in agricultural pollution incidents over the last 15 years, except during periods of heavy rainfall.

Other industries, such as sewage and forestry, are also known to contribute to water pollution problems but attract less media attention.

Lorna Davis, who heads up a nutrient management collaboration project part-funded by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and supported by the Welsh Government, explained it was often difficult for sources of water pollution to be identified.

She pointed to the example of Cemaes Bay, North Wales, where agricultural practices were blamed for pollution incidents.

Sampling

Extensive DNA sampling on the river network in the area eventually revealed that while 50 per cent of the faecal matter in the water was from farming, 25 per cent was from septic tanks and sewage discharges and 25 per cent was from dogs being walked along the beach and stream.

“This was only discovered through an in-depth analysis of the pollution problem,” Ms Davis said.

“We simply do not have that detail across Wales about what the causes of pollution are.”

BOVINE TB COMPOUNDING SLURRY STORAGE HEADACHE

IT is not just the lack of accurate data on water pollution incidents which is causing unease.

Both NFU Cymru and FUW have raised concerns about how difficult and expensive it will be for farmers to follow the new rules, particularly those setting out closed periods for spreading fertiliser.

Peter Howells, NFU Cymru’s county adviser for Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, said: “Closed periods for the spreading of slurry, manure and fertilisers would have a huge impact, especially in an area like this where we see grass growth throughout the year.

“Farming by calendar does not work. You farm according to weather and ground conditions.”

Mr Howells went on to explain closed periods for spreading may make the pollution situation worse.

“We have evidence of that in Pembrokeshire,” he said.

“Natural Resources Wales is monitoring in Bosherston, and since the NVZ was introduced, we have seen spikes in nutrient levels just before the closed period starts and then shortly after it ends.

“This is down to the pressures put on farmers to handle their nutrients in that time.”

For Jeff and Elinor Evans, those pressures are amplified by the fact they are county council tenants.

Mr Evans said: “The county council is obviously under huge financial pressure.

“They are responsible for doing the work here, but they certainly have not got the cash, so it is down to me to spend it.

“I have got a Farm Business Tenancy which ends in 14 years. A slurry store could cost me £120,000, so I have got to spend £8,000 a year, plus interest, for the next few years.

Offload

“There is not a huge margin in farming as it is, so there will be people in a similar situation, probably older than me, who will just offload and get out.”

Tenancy complications aside, the Evans family have another water-related headache in the form of bTB restrictions.

Mr Evans said: “We are comfortable at 300 livestock units on our holding, but a couple of years ago, when we were running a suckler herd and we went down with bTB, we were on more than 400 livestock units through no fault of our own.

“My storage capacity for the amount of slurry I was producing was nowhere near what I needed, because all of a sudden I was going up by another third as we could not sell the stores.

“With an NVZ equivalent for slurry handling, it is a job to work around that.”

This often-overlooked friction between bTB restrictions and the new water regulations is one of the reasons NFU Cymru has called for Welsh Government to carry out a thorough impact assessment of the proposed changes.

Mr Howells said: “The assessment needs to consider the many farms under bTB restriction.

“You can have a situation where a dairy farm loses a big chunk of its milking herd, so loses income. Where is the money then to invest in the infrastructure required as part of these regulations?

“You have also got the scenario where farms lose large numbers of replacement heifers, so your future income is affected, which again challenges the ability to invest in infrastructure and storage.”