- Location
- Devon
And to what extent are the the regulations/ rules responsible for this rather than a farmers own decision making?
Closed periods and the need for ever more storage and collection is creating more problems.
But fundamentally, the drive by all for consolidation is creating bigger and more intensive farms is the main problem. Not only because all major incidences relate to large stores but it increases the need for fossilfuelsto keep transporting everything.
And the current strict interpretation of rules by the EA will only accentuate this. Small herds can't afford the infrastructure they now insist on to meet regulations even where no issues exist.
Reading how people intend to use [and abuse] SFI options, it is clear that culitvations are going to be carried out when it isn't appropriate with implications for soils and water.
Yet livestock are as always demonised for a natural existence around watercourses. At the same time as beavers are encouraged to disrupt them.
We keep getting rules for rules sake, and then more rules to try and counteract the inadvertant consequences of previous rules. It has become a bizarre nonsense.
If someone is guilty of pollution they need to be given opportunity to rectify/ change or be charged. There are no need for further rules and regs.
And there must be some distinction between a certain amount of 'pollution/ contamination' being natural and that which is not.
