§ Mr. SteenTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he plans to announce the arrangements for the continuation of the pilot nitrate sensitive areas. [32577]
§ Mr. WaldegraveI am pleased to announce that, following our consultations with farmers, details of the812W scheme for the continuation of the 10 pilot NSAs, originally designated in 1990, will be available from Monday 3 July. The necessary statutory instrument setting out the measures and associated payment rates will shortly be laid before Parliament.
The pilot areas are being incorporated within the scheme for the 22 new NSAs launched under the Ministry's agri-environment programme last year, to form a unified scheme of 32 NSAs. Farmers in the areas will be invited to give five-year undertakings to change their farming practices to reduce nitrate leaching, based on the terms and conditions of that scheme.
The pilot NSA scheme clearly demonstrated that NSA measures are effective in reducing nitrate losses from agricultural land and I look forward to renewing our partnership with farmers in these 10 areas. The level of uptake in the first year of the 22 new NSAs was very encouraging and I am confident that the Ministry's NSA programme will make a major contribution towards ensuring the future viability of the key sources of public drinking water covered by these areas.
All farmers with land in the NSAs will automatically be sent an information pack about the scheme by their local Ministry regional service centre. Applications to join the scheme this year must be returned to regional service centres by 8 September 1995.