Archived News

27th February 2008

Laurence is busy preparing for a visit tomorrow from the Environment Agency who are coming to check all records relating to Nitrogen. In order to save time when the Agency are here, Laurence will get all the documents out ready.  They will need to see all our records of manure, nitrogen and fertilizer applications including the dung we removed from a neighbours farm and spread on our fields, also records of all livestock and where they are because urine is quite high in nitrogen. Finally the records of spray washings and pesticide containers which we pay a company to take away from the farm.  We restrict the amount of nitrogen applied to the soil so that it does not build up in the ground water.

I am busy preparing for an entirely different visit on Friday when we will be descended upon by 18 five year old girls on a farm visit to support their school work 'Food and Farming'. 

Long gone are the days of an informal visit by the local school followed by a picnic in a field. Nowadays we must provide facilities, write risk assessments, farm profiles and booking forms.  We encourage pre-visits by teachers so that we know what the pupils are studying and to discuss how we might provide a meaningful educational visit to a real working farm. One thing I cannot organise is the weather, so fingers crossed it will be as fine as today.