Nitrate vulnerable zone compliance
If your farm is in a ‘Nitrate Vulnerable Zone’ (NVZ), you must follow certain rules regarding your livestock stocking rate, the spreading of organic manures and/or nitrogen fertilisers, the storage of organic manures and/or slurry, and ensure that you comply with the ‘Farming Rules for Water’.
The Environment Agency is responsible for enforcing these rules: they will inspect your farm and detail any non-compliance, which can result in a warning (together with ‘advice and guidance’), potentially fines, or other more serious repercussions.
To avoid all that trouble, and to do the right thing, you want to comply with the rules. But to comply with these rules, it’s not enough to do the right thing: you must evidence that you’ve done the right thing, which means you need the following paperwork updated every year:
1. Evidence of your ‘Livestock Manure Nitrogen Farm Limit’ (i.e., stocking rate) calculation
2. Evidence of your manure and slurry storage capacity calculations
3. A farm ‘risk map’
4. Records of all spreading/fertiliser activity in the previous year
5. A ‘4-step Nitrogen Plan’ for the year ahead
You’re free to do this yourself. But if you want to save yourself all that trouble, I can do it for you.