NEW draft policies for the future Environmental Bill have been met with calls from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) for the proposed environmental policies to work hand-in-hand with food production.

The new policies focus on water and air quality, resource and waste, and wildlife protection, alongside the introduction of a new independent environment body – the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) – whose role it is to scrutinise environmental policy and law, investigate complaints, and put the Government’s 25-year Environment Plan into action.

In a joint statement, the NFU said: “We need to determine how the Bill will seek to improve environmental legislation, such as the nitrate regulation, to allow farmers to make applications of fertiliser and some manures according to actual soil or weather conditions, rather than farming ‘by calendar date’, and how any environmental targets are achievable and underpinned by supportive policy mechanisms.

“Farmers want to play our part in rising to the Government’s wider challenge to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better condition than we found it. But we also need government to rise to our challenge to make sure that future environment policies go hand-in-hand with a future food policy, where measures for protecting and enhancing the environment are joined up with policies to improve productivity and manage volatility to ensure we have profitable, productive and progressive farm businesses post-Brexit.”

The Bill is expected to be introduced in 2019 during the second session of Parliament.