Defra has published three consulation documents outlining proposals on how the agricultural industry can improve water quality by making changes to farming practices.

Of the three documents, the first is a revised Code of Good Agricultural Practice, which brings together what used to be the codes for Air, Soil and Water and outlines how farmers can provide the base line of protection for water from nitrate and phosphate pollution.

Although the existing code had already raised awareness and encouraged positive change in agricultural practice, the revised one builds on it, taking into account improved knowledge and understanding, and is intended to be more usable by showing how pollution problems in the water, the soil and the air are interrelated.

The second document is the Nitrate Directive Consultation, which sets out the need for extending Nitrate Vulnerable Zones and proposals for the action that growers in NVZs need to follow to reduce nitrogen from manure and fertilizer in surface or groundwater.

It sets out additional measures under the Nitrates Action Programme, which include limiting livestock manure loadings for all land to 170kg per hectare per year, extending the length of the closed spreading periods for organic manures with high nitrogen content, and applying it to all soil types, and requiring farms to limit applications of nitrogen to crop requirement.

Thirdly, the Diffuse Pollution from Agriculture consultation deals with other agricultural toxins, and outlines three options for how agriculture might meet the requirements of the Water Framework Directive.

Recent studies have indicated that agricultural activities contribute to around 60 percent of diffuse nitrate, 25 percent of diffuse phosphorous, up to 75 percent of sediment, and between 25 and 50 percent of bacterial pollution that enters river systems.

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