Under new enforcement guidelines (2025), the ‘Farming Rules for Water’ now require all land managers in England to have the following paperwork updated every year:
1. Farm Risk Map
2. Nutrient Management Plan (or equivalent)
3a. Soil Tests (at least every five years)
3b. Soil Nitrogen Supply Assessment (in place of soil N testing)
3c. Phosphorus Management Plan (for any high P index fields)
4. Spreading Map (for the year ahead)
We provide a ‘Farming Rules for Water’ compliance report covering all of the above, including a free ‘Phosphorus Management Plan’ for those who need it.
We can also provide soil sampling services, depending on your location.
Further information
The ‘Farming Rules for Water’ are regulations that apply to all land managers in England. Their purpose is to prevent agricultural diffuse pollution. The Environment Agency is responsible for enforcing these regulations and will conduct farm inspections to ensure compliance. They state that they ‘will generally prioritise giving advice and guidance before taking enforcement action’ but ‘may still escalate and impose civil or criminal sanctions if appropriate’.
The regulations came into force in 2018, but the enforcement guidelines were revised last year (2025) placing much greater emphasis on risk management and nutrient planning. In addition to abiding by the rules, land managers must now be able to ‘demonstrate that they are planning to take all appropriate reasonable precautions to help mitigate against the risk of agricultural diffuse pollution’. In practice, this amounts to the following requirements:
1. ‘You must identify and take into account any factors that could lead to the risk of pollution’, which means you need a risk map for your farm, detailing: any slopes; the soil type and condition for each field; any watercourses, surface water, boreholes, ditches or drains; and the location of any muck heaps.
2. ‘You must plan each application of organic manure or manufactured fertiliser’ and ensure ‘that you do not apply more than your soil or crop needs, at the time of application’. Inspectors will check for ‘evidence of how you’ve planned your nutrient applications’, ‘for example, a nutrient management plan or other written plan’.
3a. ‘You must take into account results of soil tests in your plans.’ You must conduct soil tests on any land where you’ve spread any organic manures or manufactured fertilisers in the past 3 years, or any land that you’ve ploughed, sowed, or harvested in the past year. Results from these tests must be no more than 5 years old and must include soil pH, phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium.
3b. Soil testing of nitrogen is not required: it is sufficient to conduct a ‘Soil Nitrogen Supply’ assessment.
3c. Additionally, ‘plans should demonstrate that land managers are planning to avoid applying organic manures that raise the Soil Phosphorus Index (soil P index) above target levels for soil and crop on land.’ If any tested fields have a high P index, you are required to demonstrate how you plan to reduce those soil concentrations back to target levels (a Phosphorus Management Plan) and you are not permitted to spread any organic manures on those fields until the levels drop.
4. A spreading map, which combines the risk map with the risk assessment and any ‘no-spread areas’, such as proximity to watercourses or high P index fields.
All quoted material taken from these pages:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rules-for-farmers-and-land-managers-to-prevent-water-pollution