catchment sensitive farming & common land from nature england

Catchment Sensitive Farming & Common Land Stewardship

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What is Catchment Sensitive Farming?

• 集水區敏感型耕作

• A joint project between the Environment Agency and Natural England, funded by Defra and the Rural Development Programme for England

• It raises awareness of diffuse water pollution from agriculture (DWPA) by giving free training and advice to farmers in selected areas in England.

• The selected areas are called ‘priority catchments(優先流域)’.

Key Facts

• Agriculture contributes around 25% of Phosphate in English waters and between 25 – 50% of the pathogen loadings which affect England’s bathing waters.

• Up to 75% of sediment input into rivers can be attributed to agriculture. This reduces water clarity and causes serious problems for fish, plants and insects.

• Pesticides are contaminating drinking water sources, requiring expensive treatment at water works to remove pesticides before it is supplied to consumers.

Priority Catchment

• Areas targetted to improve freshwater SSSIs where pollution from farming practices impacts significantly on water quality and habitats.

Priority Catchment

How to apply for training and advice

• All CSF training and advice aims to give practical and cost-effective solutions to improve water quality through:– workshops

– demonstrations

– farm walks

– farm events

– one-to-one advice on solutions from groundwater protection to whole farm appraisals

Training topics

• Topics are tailored to the area and farming sector but include:– manure management

– nutrient management

– soil condition

– pesticide management

– farm infrastructure

Capital Grant Scheme

• Support the improvement or installation of facilities that would benefit water quality by RDPA.

• Defra funds a £21 million Capital Grants Scheme in 2012-13 to support land managers in priority catchments in England

Case Study : Yorkshire Derwent Catchment

Farm Description

• Brook House is a 600 acre dairy, sheep and cereal family.

• the soil type is classified as ‘slowly permeable, seasonally wet’. This provides a moderate level of fertility with seasonally wet pastures than can suffer from impeded drainage.

• The solid manure handling system has an adjacent dirty water storage tank under an unroofed collecting yard.

• The farm has a ground water borehole affected by sulphurcontamination and has switched to abstracting water for farm use from an adjacent beck.


Pollution Issues

• Rain from an unroofed collecting yard, with dairy and parlourwashings collect into a slatted dirty water tank under the collecting yard. The dirty water has a dry matter content of 7.4% and creates 2 diffuse pollution issues :

1. a considerable amount of clean rain water would fill the dirty water holding tank and reduce intervals between emptying storage capacity.

2. slurry from cows standing in the collecting yard would seep through the slats above the dirty water holding tank, increasing the nutrient value of the dirty water and also reducing dirty water storage capacity.


Pollution Solution

• Roof over the collecting yard to improve clean/dirty water handling.

• Fill in the slats to reduce slurry contamination of stored dirty water.

What is Common land?

• Common land is a piece of land in private ownership, where other people have certain traditional rights to use it in specified ways, such as being allowed to graze their livestock or gather firewood.

• There are 7,000 commons of England covering nearly 400,000 ha.

The Management of Common land

• The management of commons presents special challenges. They have distinct legal provisions, partly derived from custom and practice, and from legislation over many centuries.

• Management depends on action by all those holding common rights (the commoners) working collectively and with land owners and occupiers, towards agreed outcomes.

Values

• Maintaining local communities.

• Commons as Carbon Stores

• Scottish common grazings hold 30% of all deep peat (>2m) in the country.

• In England, over 59% of common land is SSSI.

• In England over 28% of all common land is AONB.

Common Councils

• What are Commons Councils?

• How Commons Councils be established ?

• What are the possible benefits?

Common Councils

• Step 1 - Clarifying the benefits.

• Step 2 – Clarifying the land to be covered by a Commons Council.

• Step 3 – Establishing who has an interest in the common.

• Step 4 – Assessing the level of support for the proposed commons council.

• Step 5 – Review the response and identifying the main issues of concern.

• Step 6 – How will the Common Council operate?

• Step 7 – Further consultation.

• Step 8 – compiling a case for an establishment order.

• Step 9 - Consideration by the Secretary of State.