The Government’s controversial Nitrates Vulnerable Zones Action Program, announced this week, it will prohibit dairy farmers from spreading organic manure for three to four months of the year and will oblige them to have slurry storage capacity equivalent to five months output.

The plan will also extend Nitrate Vulnerable Zones from 55 per cent to 70 per cent of England.

Dairy UK director general, Jim Begg said the dairy sector could ill-afford the extra cost.

“Production costs have risen sharply with the cost of fuel, energy, fertilizer, and animal feed all much higher than they were a year ago. The government must understand the serious cost constraints producers are under,” he said.

Environment Minister, Phil Woolas, responded that help was available to farmers in the form of tax allowances on capital costs but critics have questioned the Government’s decision not to offer grants.

Greg Bliss, chairman of the Tenant Farmers Association said that it was indefensible to ask English dairy farmers to fork out for the full cost of new slurry stores – thought to average £50,000 – when their neighbours would receive grants of up to 60 per cent of the cost.

“Other parts of the UK, not least Northern Ireland and Scotland, have offered grant assistance to their livestock producers. English farmers have a legitimate reason for feeling that they have been discriminated against,” he said.

Despite industry opposition, Mr Woolas maintained that the new measures were essential to help the UK meet European obligations to cut nitrate pollution in water.

But Mike Payne, a nitrates consultant to the NFU, questioned whether the Government’s action plan would significantly cut pollutants.

He said: “The measures in their entirety will do relatively little to tackle a reduction in nitrates. Storage manure will cost the industry around £250-300m but will decrease nitrate levels by just 0.5-1 per cent.”

“Nitrates levels are already falling towards the recommended levels without these outdated measures and agriculture is already contributing to this – we use 40 per cent less nitrate fertilizer than we did 20 years ago, there has been a reduction in livestock and therefore manure and farming techniques have become much more efficient at utilizing nitrogen.”

Industry lobbying did succeed in getting Defra to drop the proposal for cover crops to reduce run-off from bare ground and for it to pursue a derogation from the European Commission nitrogen limit of 170 kg per hectare per annum.