THE new assistant regional director of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) for Herefordshire and Worcestershire has pointed to sustainability as the key to a brighter farming future for the counties.

David Price, who lives near Ross-on-Wye, has worked with the CLA for 15 years as a field officer.

He previously sold fertiliser to farmers keen to increase their silage output.

Now with new regulations proposed to severely curtail the use and storage of fertilising manure, he acknowledges that times have changed.

"Sustainability is now the key," he said. "Thirty years ago we were encouraging people to spend a lot of money and grow a lot of grass (for silage). Everybody is doing it now and they are being encouraged to stop.

"Within the CLA we are not advising farmers how to farm, we are helping them run farm businesses within the rural environment with pressures that are coming in from all directions.

"We advise them on legal implications, planning and access to the countryside issues."

He said that he thought compensation payments would have to be brought in to help farmers buy storage tanks to store manure over the winter months when rules, which aim to protect nitrate infiltration into ground water, require it.

"There has to be some sort of compensating payments because farmers are being pressured to prepare food as economically as possible. To enhance the environment they will need money out of the public purse, even though they don't particularly want supporting at the moment."

Herefordshire and Worcestershire CLA has a total of 5,000 local members which help make up a national membership of 45,000.

Further information is available from David Price on 01989 780746.