NVZ reprieve for farmers awaiting de-designation news

Friday 11 September 2009

NFU lobbying could have potentially saved farmers hundreds of thousands of pounds after it secured a 12-month postponement on the new NVZ slurry storage rules for farms in NVZs where nitrate levels justify de-designation at the next NVZ review.

The NFU expects around 5,000 farmers could benefit from the extension, which means they can wait before building additional slurry storage to comply with the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones Directive, while they find out if their land will be de-designated or not. Substantial savings will be made for those that could see their land removed from the NVZ list where nitrate levels have improved sufficiently.

The move comes after years of work by the NFU and its advisers since Defra first published its proposals for the NVZ action programme back in 2005. This has seen the lobbying of MPs in their constituencies as well as key advisers at a national government level.

NFU President Peter Kendall said: "The NFU lobbied hard for this postponement arguing that it was unreasonable to ask farmers to invest substantial sums of money on additional slurry storage while waiting to hear if their farm was one of those being removed from a NVZ zone. This could potentially save some members tens of thousands of pounds from not having to build - what we have always argued - was unnecessary storage in the first place."

The farmers in ‘purple areas’ (NVZ’s designated in 2002, and did not trigger designation this time around but have largely been left by Defra as a precaution) will receive an extension to the deadline for providing this storage and in some cases may not have to provide it at all.

This means that the compliance date for new slurry storage requirements for those in purple areas will move from 1^st Jan 2012 to 1^st Jan 2013.

Defra will be publishing a new map around the 8^th October, but to check if you are in a purple area, visit Magic Maps. See general instructions on how to search for your land here http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/water/quality/nitrate/pdf/magic-web-guidance.pdf. Any queries, call CallFirst on 0870 8458458.

1. The purple areas cover about 6.5 per cent of the NVZ area in England and are estimated to include around 5,000 farms.

2. Amendments to the regulation will be made by Defra in November. The change follows directly on from the NFU's earlier success in persuading Defra to agree to the principle of de-designating NVZs where nitrate levels have improved sufficiently.

3. The largest purple areas occur in the Peak District, the South Pennines, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and Durham. The remainder are south of a line from London to Gloucester.

4. The NFU has also won an extension for those farmers in a purple zone that will remain in a NVZ area at the next review. They will need to comply with installation of additional slurry by January 2013, and not 2012 as first stated by Defra.