Environment Agency chair Alan Lovell acknowledged the numerous "financial pressures" on farmers, including difficulty accessing government cash. He also called water companies "appalling" for their sewage discharges.

The chair of the environment watchdog has ordered farmers to clean up their act on river pollution, telling them it is time to “take their medicine”.

Alan Lovell, chair of the Environment Agency for England, told the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) on Tuesday that pollution from agriculture and rural land is “roughly equal [to] that coming from the water industry”.

Mr Lovell told the annual NFU conference: “Let’s clear out these pollution incidents and do it better.”

  • @snota@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2•9 months ago

    Lol isn’t this the equivalent of wagging a finger at them? Farmers have been flagrantly abusing the land they grow on since WW1. What powers are in place to stop them? Relying on their own moral code to do the right thing is the equivalent to asking Facebook to not sell our data.

    • GreyShuckOPMEnglish
      1•9 months ago

      I don’t think that the EA have many other options at the moment. With water companies, most of the pollution is from point sources - so monitoring and establishing the source is relatively easy - and sizable fines do happen.

      With farming, a lot of the pollution is diffuse - it’s just coming from fields and yards. Monitoring and establishing the sources is going to be a lot more difficult = expensive, which the EA aren’t going to be able to do. And with UK farmers currently taking notes from France and elsewhere in the EU, the Tories are not about to do anything to lose even more support from them like increase fines or increase funding to the EA for more monitoring.

      Assuming that the Tories are out on their ear at the next election Labour may well increase funding for the EA, but they are still likely to be treading carefully with farmers for a while.

      I’d think that the best route is to get agri-pollution in the media to the same extent that sewage and water companies are now and get public interest and support. Maybe some kind of ‘clean water’ food campaign or something.