Sepa fertiliser regulations rely on accurate weather forecasting
While weather forecasts play a key role in planning the day’s work in just about every sector of Scottish farming, there’s no escaping the fact that forecasters are often pilloried for getting it wrong.
However, although the daily predictions have long attained compulsory viewing status at critical periods such as during harvest and hay and silage making, the forecasts are now set to play a regulatory role in key arable and grassland operations.
NFU Scotland revealed yesterday that the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) had proposed that farmers would not be allowed to apply fertiliser if heavy rain was forecast within 48 hours of the field oper- ation being conducted. However, after lobbying from the union the proposals to be rolled out under Controlled Activities Regulations (CAR) which cover the water environment have now reduced the timescale to 24 hours.
The union’s environment and land use chairman, Angus Macfadyen said that while farmers would always want to avoid spreading expensive fertiliser before heavy rain as run-off and leaching would inevitably lead to considerable financial losses as well as posing an environmental threat, basing regulations on 48-hour forecasts was unacceptable:
“Given the changeable weather we experience in Scotland, the original 48-hour timeframe for spreading fertiliser before heavy rain was to too difficult for our members to adhere to whilst still managing to effectively improve the fertility of their ground. The amendment to just a day’s lay time is a sensible compromise.”
Meanwhile, the union’s deputy director of policy, Andrew Bauer, highlighted that there was good news on flooding and riverbank erosion, and welcomed changes to General Binding Regulations which would allow stones, trees and parts of trees to be used to stop flooding “without contacting Sepa or paying thousands of pounds for the privilege” by following published guidelines.
“While these changes might be small they represent a major shift in attitude towards allowing farmers to look after their own waterways – one which we have been looking for the past 15 years.”