Growers and farmers may have to quit the industry if the Scottish Executive continues with plans for restrictions in Scotland’s Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs).

Scotland currently has four NVZs, covering around 14% of Scottish farmland mainly along the country’s East coast and Dumfriesshire. Regulations date back to the EU Nitrates Directive 1991, which obliges member states to monitor nitrate levels in water and designate NVZs as appropriate.

The main area of contention within the Scottish Executive’s proposals surround the closed periods during which growers and farmers in NVZs are banned from spreading slurry. The Executive has proposed significant extensions to these closed periods, a move that NFUS believes will cost farmers tens of thousands of pounds on extra slurry storage.

The union has also cited the research in the Executive’s own consultation document, which shows that leaching of nitrogen reduces dramatically after November 15 and is largely non-existent in December and January.

It has therefore calling for closed periods to begin in October and finish when leaching ceases to be significant, with a precise date yet to be named. It also urged the Executive to secure a derogation from the tightened organic fertilizer limit of 170kg of nitrogen per hectare. The present limit is 250kN/ha.

NFUS president John Kinnaird said: “Good regulation is proportionate. The Executive’s proposals are nowhere close to being proportionate and, if left unchanged, will sound the death knell for some farms.

“The farming industry obviously has an environmental responsibility but government has to ensure its promises to avoid goldplating actually mean something.”

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