Matt Redman highlights that farming is being unfairly blamed for phosphorous pollution

A little snow is near enough guaranteed to bring us delays, over-exaggerated media coverage and pigeons. We can overcome the traffic delays and the media coverage. However, it seems that our pigeons were trained by the SAS and are determined to go where they like and not be moved. Luckily there haven’t been too many until the recent cold spell and most plants are now large enough to withstand a little damage.

Without wanting to sound like a broken record, blackgrass is still thick in most of the wheat that has been sprayed with Atlantis (iodosulfuron + mesosulfuron) and pendimethalin. In some areas it looks like it’s had zero effect, so resorting to some patch spraying of glyphosate could be a possibility; we are also sending some tissue samples off for resistance testing.

I’ve got a feeling the new “craze” is going to be to blame farmers for the levels of phosphorus in the water. First, a speaker from the Environment Agency at a local Catchment Sensitive Farming meeting I attended, and then Countryfile. OK, some is undoubtedly from farming and avoidable, but the Environment Agency failed to bring any statistics to show the farming/water companies’ percentage contribution and Countryfile failed to mention the water companies contributions at all. After all, washing powder is currently a massive source of phosphorus and I haven’t seen anyone spreading that on a field yet – even to try and clean up blackgrass.

As farmers, we’re now doing more than ever to limit watercourse pollution, just as water companies are. I assume water companies measure intake and outtake levels from treatment works so it wouldn’t be hard to “eliminate” their contribution, to give a better idea of how much is coming from farming. Next time the issue is mentioned, let’s have some better facts and a balanced view, please.

Matt Redman operates an agricultural contracting business and helps out on the family farm at Lower Gravenhurst, Bedfordshire. The 210ha farm grows predominately wheat, oilseed rape and beans