Managing your manures with nutrient budgeting

Sunday 11 October 2009

MANURE and Fertilizer Management will be the topic of a FREE cost-cutting workshop for farmers in Cumbria.

The workshop will be held on the 10th November 2009 at Armathwaite Hall, Keswick CA12 4RE from 10am to 3-30pm. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. Booking is essential.

The workshops have been designed to support farmers in their understanding of nutrient budgeting and in preparing nutrient budgeting plans for cost effective fertilizer use. They will also help farmers calculate fertilizer recommendations in order to save money and reduce risk of diffuse pollution caused by surface run-off.

Attendees will be able to view the PLANET computer software, to enable them to input their farm data and produce crop fertiliser recommendations, while helping them to comply with new the NVZ action programme regulations.

The workshop is organised by staff from the Rural Business Centre at Myerscough College, in partnership with the England Catchment Sensitive Farming Delivery Initiative funded by DEFRA.

For further information, or to book a place, contact the Rural Team at the Rural Business Centre, Myerscough College on 01995 642 206. Email: bclifford@myerscough.ac.uk

Catchment Sensitive Farming encourages management practices which create on farm savings and result in environmental benefits by reducing diffuse pollution from agriculture.

To contact your local officer: Bassenthwaite Lake Catchment, Sandy Brown, Catchment Sensitive Farming Officer, Unit 5, Gilwilly Industrial Estate, Penrith CA11 9BN T: 01768 860725 M: 07818095768

Further workshops are planned for other regions of the North West (Details still to be confirmed)

NVZ advice and support from the Environment Agency:

Guidance leaflets, covering different aspects of the new rules, available from Defra's website.
Our questions and answers document (PDF, 476KB), covering specific questions and answers not included in Defra’s guidance leaflets.
A helpline for technical queries from farmers and advisors. Call 0845 345 1302 (Monday to Friday, 8.00 - 18.00). Calls will be charged at the local rate.
Farmers events and workshops (PDF, 34KB) offering in-depth practical guidance to the new regulations. More are being planned all the time.
Software tools that help with some of the calculations required under the new rules. These are available free of charge from the planet website or by calling 08456 023864.

If you have land located in an NVZ, it's likely that you will have received a letter about the new rules. NVZs now cover almost 70 per cent of England so, even if you haven’t received a letter, you should find out if you are in an NVZ. You can do this using the detailed maps that are available on Defra's website.