Angela Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2015-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department provides for farmers on reducing soil erosion on their land.

George Eustice

The Government published Cross Compliance in England: soil protection standards 2015 in January 2015. The guidance provides advice on how to identify soil erosion and on how to minimise erosion from cropping practices, livestock and vehicles.

Farmers can access advice from the Farming Advice Service (FAS). The FAS is a service funded by Defra to help farmers understand and meet the requirements of Cross Compliance and other regimes, including the European Directives on water protection.

Farmers can also seek advice under the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) project, which is run by Natural England in partnership with the Environment Agency and Defra. CSF raises awareness of diffuse water pollution from agriculture by giving free training and advice to farmers in priority catchments.