Agriculture & Horticulture businesses impact on the environment in a variety of ways – either directly through your land, building and livestock management activities – or indirectly through the upstream activities of your suppliers.

The key environmental issues affecting your sector vary depending on the holding-type, but broadly speaking the following are of most relevance: agricultural emissions to air (notably methane for livestock farming and nitrous oxide for arable); machinery and building energy use (especially in horticulture and intensive poultry and pig units); water pollution (through drift of pesticides and fertilisers); the production of agro-chemicals and feeds; and waste disposal. Where these activities are carried out by contractors it is good practice to include environmental requirements in contracts.

Listed below are links to detailed information on the most relevant pieces of environmental legislation affecting your sector.

It should be noted that this list does not represent an exhaustive list of legislative requirements for your sector – for example, it does not include Single Farm Payment ‘Cross Compliance’ requirements. A full list of legislation can be obtained at NetRegs.