Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The CSF Delivery Project (CSFDP) is raising awareness and promoting voluntary
activity and best practice to tackle this issue. It comes in on the back of CAP reform,
which at a minimum should make farmers realise that the old system of subsidised
production is over, that gives CSFDP a new platform to begin its work.
As already highlighted in this paper, the cross compliance requirements and standards
of the Single Payment Scheme, and numerous options of the Environmental stewardship
Scheme (both Entry Level Stewardship and Higher Level Stewardship) will make an
important contribution to tackling DWPA. The resource protection options of HLS are of
particular importance. HLS will be particularly important in priority catchments.
The Project has so far put significant funding (£2.5 million) into a pollution
minimisation advice contract being delivered by RDS/ADAS, to improve the
environmental performance of farming. Most of this work is geared at DWPA.
We have also secured £10 million in 2006-07 and £15 million in 2007-08 of
Government funding to spend on tackling DWPA. This is on top of agri-environment
money and the ADAS advice contract. The key elements of our model for CSF delivery
include the following:
prioritisation of catchments within river basin districts
creation of a network of Catchment-Sensitive Farming Officers within a Natural
England/ Environment Agency partnership
detailed knowledge of catchments and of farming activity within them
shared understanding of practices which cause DWPA and of mitigating measures
establishment of inclusive and dynamic catchment steering groups
involvement of key stakeholders, in particular farmers
targeting of farms for advice, including 1:1 farm visits
support and incentives through enhanced uptake of agri-environment schemes, and
possible capital grants.
Preparations to deliver these elements are well advanced.
Impact of current policies on water quality
Defra have funded studies to provide projections of estimated quantitative percentage
changes in key arable and livestock activities to 2015 (Defra 2004 d, e). These scenario
based studies have indicated that there are a number of uncertainties about the impact of
CAP reform but the research to date indicates that CAP reform won't do enough to
deliver the scale of reductions in nutrient levels required to meet our water quality targets
in most catchments in England. The key findings were:
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