Mrs Down's Diary

Half of our farm is already in an NVZ. Nitrate vulnerable zone to you.

That means ( I think) areas where the Environment agency is worried that the levels of nitrate running off the land into rivers and groundwater are too high.

Currently over half the land in England is designated as NVZ, and there is more to come. And that will include more of us in it.

So what to do? First we have to find out if we really do have more land to go in an NVZ. But I can't use the maps that they tell us to. I find the MAGIC site which DEFRA is promoting for farmers to get their information from is almost totally impenetrable to my computer skills. So no go there.

To simplify matters however there are only nine guidance leaflets for us to read. Plus risk assessments to make. Impermeable bases to construct.

Identification of field sites on risk sites to record. Manure storage facilities to build. Assess soil nitrogen supply. Assess crop nitrogen requirements. Record planned application and actual application of soil nitrogen requirements ( including organic or manufactured nitrogen) and make sure we don't put too much of anything remotely resembling nitrates ( the Nmax) on the land and also be careful that when manure is spread, that it isn't spread above four metres in a high trajectory.

Our heads hurt.

For full story see West Sussex Gazette December 17