WITH harvest now almost complete, the National Farmers Union is reminding farmers in York and North and East Yorkshire that new two-metre field margins, alongside hedges and watercourses, must be established as soon as the harvest is in.
The margins are a requirement of the so-called "cross-compliance" conditions introduced as part of this year's reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. Designed to protect living field boundaries from the effects of agricultural cultivation, the margins must be introduced on all land, including pasture, set-aside and land used for crop production as soon as possible after July 15.
They must be a minimum of two metres from the centre of a hedge and one metre from the crest of a bank.
Updated: 10:52 Monday, August 22, 2005
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