Slurry

I am not surprised. I, for my part, have not received a great dearth of letters from constituents affected. I am glad that those are getting through to the Minister, and hopefully the points that they raise will be understood and acted upon. Many farmers, and others interested in agriculture, have concerns about the effect of the proposed regulations and the result for many farms. It would be invidious to read out every letter that I have received on this matter. However, I should mention that I spent a very useful hour or so, on the weekend before last, discussing the matter with one of my constituents, Mr. Phippen, of Court farm in Buckland, and a few of his colleagues from other farms whom he brought with him. I have also received very helpful letters from people such as Mr. Wellstead of Withy farm in Charlton Mackrell, Mr. Churchouse of Manor farm in Castle Cary, and Mr. Howe from Pen Sellwood. They all raised various points about the regulations that need to be addressed. Those points fall into a number of categories: first, the rationale behind the proposals; secondly, the practical consequences, and thirdly, the cost of complying for working farms. The Minister will be aware that, in my constituency, dairy farming is the primary agricultural sector. We like to think that Somerset has some of the best dairy land in the country. Despite the predations of recent years, I still have a large number of dairy farmers in my constituency, who are very concerned about the consequences of the regulations for their farm businesses. I must also mention the pig sector, even though it is not so prevalent, because I used to breed pigs. As he knows, the pig sector has regular economic ups and downs, which will not be helped by the regulations. I am sure that the Minister is familiar with the formula, which has been widely circulated among dairy farmers, for working out the consequences for their own farms. I have some figures provided by Mr. Griffin of New Barn farm on Godminster lane in Bruton, who has worked out the consequences for his farm. He milks 150 cows on 100 hectares of prime Somerset grassland; he will require 22 weeks of slurry storage capacity and will have a whole-farm manure-loading limit of 170 kg of nitrogen per hectare. Those 150 dairy cows provide an average yield of 8,000 litres and produce 99 kg of nitrogen per animal per year. He also has 20 heifers less than 12-months-old producing 28 kg per animal per year. The total amount of nitrogen produced by those animals is 12,440 kg per hectare. However, when calculated against a loading limit of 170 kg, his 100 hectares of land available for spreading allows for a total permitted manure capacity for the farm of 10,200 kg per hectare, which means that he is 2,240 kg per hectare over his limit.