Actions to better manage water resources
In May’s NFU British Farmer and Grower magazine, ADAS Agriculture and Land Management Managing Director Jackie Evans examined the actions agriculture can take to more efficiently manage water resources for resilience.
Water is a vital resource for all agricultural processes, intrinsic to a successful crop and a healthy livestock herd. In the context of escalating extreme weather, it is also the one most at risk. Understanding water resource use, soil health and areas where efficiencies can be made is a vital means of mitigating dry weather now and for the long term.
Rivers
Where a farm is near a river catchment, abstraction from rivers is a lifeline, particularly so for high value crops, such as potatoes that require higher volumes of water. Due to this demand, agricultural use of water has to be well managed – much like the internal drainage boards manage drainage in areas like the fens. Such supervision will ensure we protect water as an asset, maintaining its availability even in difficult conditions.
This dependence on river water in the context of the dry spells experienced last summer presents a challenge. What is potentially more challenging than declining river levels however, is managing the potential for river pollution. As ADAS colleague Richard Gooday, a catchment modeller, observes, the potential for contamination of rivers and water bodies is greater when river volumes are lower. When a river is low, any pollution entering the water is not diluted as it would be when the river is high, resulting in higher pollutant concentrations.
So, what actions are available to us to better manage our resources?
Adapting existing farm infrastructure
In the short term, adapting existing farm buildings and infrastructure to capture and store rain water could have a big impact. In the UK in particular, we expect rain – making the most of this as a readily available source of water is viable across many settings. Rain water harvesting systems have numerous benefits, not just in improving resilience to drought. They also reduce our dependency on rivers and ground water abstraction. Rainwater is suitable for machine and yard wash, crop irrigation water and in some instances, livestock drinking purposes.
Simple quick-fixes can also have a significant impact, for example, water can be saved in washing down processes by sweeping and brushing away the worst of the mud and animal excreta before washing with water. And where water is needed, turning to a low volume option will save water while still thoroughly cleaning down. Recycling water from plate coolers for cleaning down makes the most of available resources.
Tom Brassington, ADAS Agricultural Engineer, said protecting animals from intense heat by providing sufficient shade and increasing ventilation not only safeguards their health but also reduces water consumption for drinking and cooling. Looking longer term, establishing more significant infrastructure may offer greater security, such as installing a borehole or investigating options for a reservoir. However these have much greater cost implications so benefits would need to be assessed against individual circumstances.
As Sarah Kendall highlighted in her previous article managing soil and root depth for capturing water, understanding the impact of this increasing reality on our own individual circumstances highlights the need for making lasting changes. Once we know where resource is needed, we can then look to adapt and protect the water resources we do have.
This article was first published May 2023 in NFU’s British Farmer and Grower magazine.