The Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) is urging anyone who wants to see an effective and targeted approach to improving water quality without threatening the viability of farm businesses to contact their local Member of the Senedd (MSs) urging them to vote to annul the recently laid Water Resources (Control of Agricultural Pollution) (Wales) Regulations on 3rd March.
Following years of work by stakeholders as part of the Wales Land Management Forum Agricultural Pollution Sub Group and the submission in April 2018 of a report outlining 45 recommendations to Welsh Government, they chose on 27th January to copy and paste 30 year old EU Nitrate Vulnerable Zone rules, rebranding them the Water Resources Regulations.
Despite the fact that even NRW - the principal advisor to Welsh Government on issues relating to the environment and its natural resources - has previously warned that the Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) approach may have the “perverse outcome” of worsening water quality and supported the 45 recommendations, these new regulations will impose NVZ rules across the whole of Wales.
To summarise, this will include closed periods for spreading fertiliser and slurry, no end of paperwork in regard to nutrient management plans, the production of risk maps including calculations of slurry production and nitrogen content and further the requirement to be able to store 5 months worth of slurry during the 4 month October to January closed period.
To put this into perspective, this leaves February to spread at least a proportion of that slurry before stores become full. According to 1891 to 2020 Met Office data, there are an average of 14 days of rain in Wales during February, meaning there will be two weeks for every cattle farmer across Wales to spread slurry.
February 2020 actually saw 23 days of rain and rainfall figures of 260% above the 1981 to 2010 average, suggesting that this ‘farming by calendar’ approach will inevitably have serious consequences.
Furthermore, the Welsh Government’s Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) of the regulations states that this approach will cost Welsh farmers as much as £360 million in infrastructure costs alone.
This is £99 million more than the Welsh Government's figure for the Total Income from Farming (TIFF) in Wales in 2019 and around £30 million more than Wales’ average annual Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget over the last CAP funding period.
Such infrastructure costs equates to an average cost per Welsh holding of around £14,500 - a figure which rises to an average cost of around £25,000 when only those most likely to be acutely impacted are considered - and this is just an average, with the costs for many individual businesses being many tens of thousands more.
One pollution incident is clearly one too many, however, given the above and the facts that clearly show that this is not the suitable approach for tackling agricultural pollution in Wales, the FUW is urging everyone to click on the links below and enter your postcode to send the prepared letter to your local MS urging them to do the right thing for our industry, rural communities and environment by voting against these draconian regulations on 3rd March.
English: https://www.fuw.org.uk/en/policy/contact-your-mp
Welsh: https://www.fuw.org.uk/cy/polisi/cysylltwch-a-ch-as-lleol