Globally, it is estimated farmers will have to produce 70% more food by 2050.
Water abstraction is a highly regulated activity. In the UK, farmers and growers with permission to abstract water face increasing difficulties in maintaining access to water as a result of WFD ‘no deterioration’ demands being applied to abstraction regulations. Licensed volumes of water available to farmers are being reduced to ensure that growth in business use of water is prevented.
This presents the food and farming sector, and the UK as a whole, with a dilemma. How can we grow more food in the future with access to less water?
The NFU understands the need to protect the environment. But whilst ‘no deterioration’ is an admirable ambition, the WFD is causing a real challenge for those tasked with finding a workable balance between environmental and business needs for water.
Clearly it is in all our interests to ensure that our precious and finite supplies of water are conserved, supported and protected. The NFU believes that this ambition may be more pragmatically achieved by accepting that some existing WFD targets are just not achievable in practice because of the cost and/or technical feasibility of delivering them.
The European Commission is at an early stage of evaluating its plans for the WFD fitness check and recently consulted on its evaluation road map.