Podcast highlights ways farmers can cut river pollution

A podcast has been released providing farmers more information on how environmental incidents can be cut and where some of the biggest pollution incidents come from.

Speaking with presenter Seth Conway and Mole Valley Farmers' Lisa Hambly, the Environment Agency explained how 86% of rivers in England currently fail the threshold for good ecological status.

The EA investigates all failures to attain a ‘reason for not achieving a good status’ (RNAGS), with a failure often provided for multiple reasons.

In the last cycle of data in 2019, there were a total of 14,846 RNAGS for England’s rivers, of which agriculture accounted for nearly 30% of these and water companies 27%.

In the same period, in Devon and Cornwall, over half (51%) of water bodies were affected by agriculture.

Although severe pollution incidents have come down considerably since the 1990s, which the EA praised farmers for, many rivers are still failing in part due to agriculture practices.

"56% of agriculture RNAGS nationally are due to phosphate. Fine sediment also accounts for 11% of RNAGS," said Stephen Webster from the EA.

"A lot of problems have been due to soil erosion events, which have happened because of poor soil structure. If the soil structure is in bad nick, then it's going to cause problems.

"It's important for farmers to understand how they can mitigate against these soil erosion events. If you have good soil structure, these problems largely go away. It really is the be-all and end-all."

Mr Webster said many of the soil runoff incidents are a result of compaction at depth. "All that happens is the top 20-30cm fills up, and then you get runoff." However, there are soils that will see natural over land flow (over impermeable bedrock or clay).

"The mitigation methods for preventing soil erosion on these soils are different to freely draining soils. Therefore, understanding your soil is vital."

Under the Farming Rules for Water regulations which are outcome based and not prescriptive, the soil erosion aspect depends on many variables, such as soil type, slope, geography, land use, weather etc.

This means issues and incidents are treated on a case-by-case basis, explained Mr Webster.

He said the level of the enforcement (advice-led) would match the severity of the incident, with a range of factors including crop suitability, level of compaction, mitigation methods utilised as well as any previous dealings with the EA considered.

Mr Webster advised listeners to work with the EA and the wider industry to understand how they could mitigate against such pollution events.

"We want to work together with farmers, but we are also the regulators, so we can give only so much advice before going down the enforcement route.”

Maize was discussed during the podcast as a crop that gets bad press for causing soil erosion. However, when appropriate steps are taken to mitigate the risks, it can be grown with success.

Mr Webster added: "Maize is a cracking crop, and I would love to keep it as part of farmers cropping rotation, but the management and post-harvest management of maize is important.

"Farmers must understand not all land can be harvested in mid-late October. Therefore, understanding the land's capability and the risks associated with their land, and match the correct maize variety or other crops to the land’s capabilities."

Ms Hambly encouraged listeners to understand each of their fields and plan the cropping appropriately. "Check your own backyards and fields and ask yourself if there's something you could be doing better.

"A nutrient management plan will help you focus on cropping and understand the best places to crop and where and when to spread muck, enabling you to plan ahead of time.

"It not only helps you become more profitable; it will also help better yields."