England Catchment Sensitive Farming Delivery Initiative (ECSDFI) is a project that was launched in April 2006, funded by Defra and delivered by the Environment Agency and Natural England. There are 50 priority catchments in England, where we are working with farmers to reduce diffuse water pollution from agriculture. The Avon is one of these catchments.

The non-regulatory initiative is both free and confidential, working towards improving the environment and farm business by offering advice and incentives to promote changes in management practises – in the last 3 years £486,000 has been spent on capital grants items such as water course fencing, clean and dirty water separation in farm yards and roofing stock yards and manure storage areas in the Avon catchment.

Workshops held this year have been focusing on improving soil structure in arable fields to reduce soil run-off, this help prevent siltation and nutrient enrichment of the Avon. ECSFDI through a number of specialist one to one visits and soil sampling we are helping farmers take into account nutrients available in the soil and organic manures and balancing this with the need of the crop.