Farmers express concern over cost of exemption repeal

Farmers’ concern about a proposal to repeal an exemption for slurry, silage and fuel stores on farms built before 1 March 1991 have been passed to Welsh Government. The proposal to amend the Silage, Slurry and Agricultural Fuel Oil (SSAFO) Regulations is made within the Government’s consultation document ’Review of the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ) in Wales’. Farmers fear the change will force them into building new structures at excessive cost for no justifiable reason.

In a letter today to the Welsh Government Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development John Griffiths, NFU Cymru President Ed Bailey wrote, ’There is a large number of these structures on Welsh farms which were soundly built and pose no pollution threat. A significant proportion of these structures will have many years of useful life left in them. We would strongly contend that there is no good reason or evidence to suggest that in these circumstances farmers should be forced into the huge cost of having to build new structures by 2015.

’The consultation document has provided no evidence to show what if any problem arises from older slurry, silage or fuel oil stores built before the regulations came into effect. The consultation document has provided no impact assessment that estimates the cost to the Welsh Agricultural Industry of the changes or an estimate of the potential impact that these costs would have on individual farm viability. We believe that the cost to the industry would be huge and we do question what evidence there is to justify the proposed change.

’Furthermore the consultation proposes to change the SSAFO regulations so that farms outside NVZs have to build as much slurry storage as those within NVZs.’ The logic of this is stated to be to simplify compliance with both sets of regulations (SSAFO and NVZs). Farmers outside NVZs are only faced with SSAFO regulations, so this would not be seen as a simplification issue for 97% of the farmed area of Wales.

’We are also concerned about the process Welsh Government has opted to seek views on this potential change that impacts on the whole of Wales. Thankfully the vast majority of farmers in Wales are not impacted by NVZ rules. We are disappointed that this proposed change has effectively been hidden within this NVZ consultation document meaning the majority of farmers are unaware of a rule change that could potentially have huge implications for their farming businesses.


’I sincerely hope that Welsh Government will reconsider its proposals for changing the SSAFO regulations and that the exemption is maintained,’ Mr Bailey said.