Failings that just can’t be disguised

DESPITE various pleadings there’s no sign of the Environment Agency softening its attitude towards the autumn spreading of farmyard manure and slurry.

Not even an approach by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee (proprietor: Neil Parish MP) has had any success.

The restrictions were introduced this year as part of a stricter interpretation of the 2018 Farming Rules for Water.

They insisted spreading of organic matter should only be allowed to meet the immediate nutrient needs of the crop, and effectively rule out spreading on grassland and cereals, while limiting any application to winter oilseed rape.

There has been one minor concession to soften the blow, a temporary exemption which, however, is dependent on farmers pre-notifying the EA of any spreading, and only being allowed to do so if they can prove they have no alternative means of disposal available.

The adverse effect of the restrictions has been spelled out by Mr Parish, Tiverton MP and a farmer himself in a letter to EA chief executive Sir James Bevan.

It advances the argument that autumn spreading is tried and tested good practice and incorporating it into the soil before a crop was planted, reduced air pollution.

There was the further – and important – point, as Mr Parish argued that a ban on slurry spreading would drive farmers to use more bagged fertiliser with its higher carbon footprint and consequent increases in ammonia nitrate levels, neither of which exactly accord with Government net-zero and clean air ambitions.

He might have added that fertiliser prices are currently running off the scale and many farmers are looking at increases of several hundred per cent on last year.

And at a time when the rug of single payment support is being pulled steadily, if not abruptly from under farmers’ feet, they are wondering whether the industry holds any future for them.

In fact, the EA’s intransigence is helping to create a perfect storm which looks increasingly likely to cut a wide swathe through the ranks of the UK’s producers before the spring.

But Mr Parish might just as well have saved himself time and ink. He knows as well as anyone that the EA is getting tough with farmers, an attempt to buff up its distinctly tarnished credentials.

Because the agency is now being hung out to dry for having presided over the systematic fouling of the countryside and waterways by everyone from unscrupulous scrap dealers to supposedly respectable and responsible water companies.

An organisation which wears the mantle of an environmental watchdog has failed on so many levels, from keeping woefully inadequate records of who is handling and disposing of what toxic waste to carrying out too few routine inspections and instigating the necessary enforcement action against offenders.

For whatever reason, whether it be underfunding or because of the challenge presented by the juxtaposition of so many regulations and so many people determined to evade them, it has a shameful, miserable record.

All the evidence – from the thousands of illegal sewage discharges to the scores of unregulated waste tips now leaching poisons into the environment – makes it appear that the Environment Agency has lost its grip entirely.

Hence its attempt to demonstrate the contrary by going after with a vengeance the usual soft target: the farming industry.