NVZ proposals could place cost burden on farmers

Government proposals for Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ) risk burdening farmers with unnecessary costs and red tape, the NFU has warned.

DEFRA’s Nitrates Directive, a four-year review of NVZ designations, is intended to reduce water pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources. In England, 62.1% of land is currently designated as NVZs.

The consultation, which closed on 16 March, sought views on options for revised action programme measures to control nitrogen pollution from agricultural sources from 2013 onwards.

But the NFU branded some proposals included in the directive as “bizarre”, especially considering the government’s “vocal commitment to reducing red tape”.

NFU head of policy services Andrew Clark said: “Retrospective application of standards to older (20 year+) silage, slurry and agricultural fuel oil stores is unnecessary given that there is no evidence of an age-related problem from these stores or an assessment of the cost of complying.”

The union also voiced concerns about other proposals, including extending the closed periods when slurry and poultry manure cannot be spread, and introducing mandatory over-winter cover crops, rejected from the 2008 proposals, but now suggested as confined to sandy soils in groundwater NVZs.

“DEFRA’s own evidence recognises that this just swaps nitrate in water for the same amount of ammonia released to the atmosphere – probably at greater cost to the environment as well as to farming,” Mr Clark said.

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