Source · Select Committees · Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 12
12
Acknowledged
Paragraph: 71
When deciding on areas for designation, the costs and benefits for local stakeholders should be...
Recommendation
When deciding on areas for designation, the costs and benefits for local stakeholders should be carefully assessed, with consideration given to the potential impact on land adjacent to bathing waters. We recommend that DEFRA ensure its Environmental Land Management Scheme supports action by farmers with land adjacent to designated waters to minimise the risk of any faecal contamination from livestock which might pose a risk to bathing water quality.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government discusses its ongoing package of support for farmers to manage nutrients sustainably through environmental land management schemes, but does not specifically commit to ensuring ELMS targets support for farmers adjacent to designated waters to minimise faecal contamination.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
71
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government · verbatim extract
Acknowledged
We agree that environmental land management schemes should support farmers to take positive action to improve water quality. Many of the actions that environmental land management schemes will incentivise will help reduce all major forms of pollution, including faecal pollution and nutrients. This includes the actions under the Sustainable Farming Incentive that we will incentivise this year, for example, to introduce cover crops to reduce run off and improve crop yields by minimising the wastage of valuable nutrients while improving soil health. Alongside this, the Government is expanding the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) partnership to ensure farmers in all of England can access free, in person advice on water quality. CSF officers, based locally, will be ideally placed to help farmers understand the water quality priorities of their area, such as bathing waters at risk of agricultural pollution. In areas draining into bathing waters, such advice will help farmers choose the incentive, grant and voluntary based actions that will best achieve bathing water quality standards.
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