EA lists top 10 reasons for inspection failure in 2022

Farm inspectors have revealed the top reasons for non-compliance one year into the Environment Agency’s (EA) new era of heightened farm scrutiny in England.

Of the 5,590 improvement actions issued to almost 3,500 English farms by the EA in 2022, more than one third was for:

• The quality of the silage clamp
• Failure to show a nutrient management plan
• Not having up-to-date soil test results – these must be done at least every five years
• Insufficient slurry storage capacity.

The rest were for:

• Drainage issues on farmyards
• Quality of oil storage
• Manure storage on farmyards
• Quality of slurry stores
• Concreting on yards
• Failure to produce a sufficient manure management plan.

See also: Opinion: Farming Rules for Water present challenges for all

Being unable to show soil test results or a nutrient management plan on a minority of farms was “failing to get the basics right, never mind the detail”, an EA spokesperson told the recent Maize Growers Association conference.

Inspection increase

Heightened farm inspections in 2022 – from 300 a year to about 4,000 a year – follows a challenging 2021.

Only 14% of English rivers met water quality targets in 2021 and 54 serious pollution incidents were blamed on farming, with about half of these linked to dairying.  

Defra’s target of 4,000 farm inspections a year returns the volume of farm inspections to the level previously seen 20 years ago, the conference heard.

EA officials say 95% of inspected farmers did not face formal enforcement, and of 3,449 inspections on 3,172 farms, only 168 enforcement actions followed.

Of these, 154 warnings were issues, 13 of these escalated to notices and one was a formal caution. The EA is currently investigating 20 serious offences.