The DEFRA-commissioned Corry Review landed earlier this week, and Environment Secretary Steve Reed has indicated DEFRA will implement a lot of it. (There was also a great section on Natural Capital ๐ณ worth reading - Emily Norton posted a good summary: https://t.ly/K2B3w)
In this post, Iโll explain:
โข Why the current manure rules exist
โข Whatโs not working (42% of farms inspected in 2023 were non compliant ๐ )
โข What Dan Corry's Review suggests should change
This matters. If adopted, these recommendations could finally move us towards rules that are easier to follow and better for both farmers ๐ง๐พ and rivers ๐ .
๐ So, why do manure rules exist?
Manure and fertiliser ๐ฉ are packed with nutrients like nitrates and phosphates. If too much is applied or at the wrong time, crops can't take it all up, and it ends up in watercourses. The result: algae blooms, depleted oxygen, and dead fish โ a process called eutrophication ๐ .
The Farming Rules for Water (FRfW) and Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) regulations are supposed to reduce this type of pollution.
How they work:
โข take soil samples to calculate crop need
โข create 'spreading maps' to avoid high-risk areas (e.g. slopes, watercourses)
โข closed periods to avoid spreading in winter when crops are dormant
๐ฅ The problem: fixed dates, full stores, poor outcomes
โCorry highlights what most farmers and advisors already know:
โข Closed periods block early spreading, even when ground conditions are good
โข This leads to slurry stores hitting capacity mid-winter
โข Resulting in store failures or last-minute spreading in wet conditions, just to avoid stores overflowing โ ironically increasing the pollution risk!
โCorry calls this out clearly โ and critices the complexity for farmers of the existing FRfW / NVZ rules.
๐ป What does Corry suggest instead?
โข Create one unified set of rules
โข Look at amending fixed windows with a more risk-based approach
โข Use better digital tools and leverage public datasets to support quick, real-time compliance
But hereโs a slightly ominous sign: the review holds up a Nutrient Calculator scheme used in Poole Harbour as a model โ the tool used there is a 15-tab Excel spreadsheet (you can see it here: https://t.ly/d96Sp ๐ซฃ).
Farmers and agronomists whoโve used it say itโs time-consuming, clunky, and prone to copy/paste just to get it done. It's not the future.
๐ง๐พ But what else can we do?
Well at Soil Benchmark, we're on a mission to show that modern tech can solve this problem. Our platform:
โข Auto-generates field-level nutrient plans & risk maps
โข Joins up SFI, NVZ and FRfW requirements
โข Pre-populates from existing farm & national data
โข Has, in 16 months, helped more than 3,500 farms covering 9% of English farmland
๐ Full report: https://t.ly/lElwL (pages 36โ37)
