The protection and replenishment of our water resources is important for crop development and habitat provision. Climate change continues to intensify the water cycle, resulting in more extreme flooding and droughts, creating challenges for crop production. With water scarcity likely to become scarcer in the future, we need to improve the efficiency of how we utilise, conserve, and manage water.

Improving water quality

Since 1995, there has been drastic improvements to water quality in the UK, with a decrease in some of the worst pollutants, and an increase in small animal numbers. However, water pollution incidents still occur and are increasing, caused through a combination of industry practice and the intensifying water cycle. Our sprayer operator workshops operate with the aim of reducing the risk of plant protection products impacting non-target organisms. Each year, we run 100 workshops throughout the UK for spray operators, educating on areas such as how to reduce drift and protect water courses by using the correct nozzles and spray additives, and how to reduce water usage though spray volumes.

Reducing our water consumption

As we continue to deliver best practice training to operators to protect water quality and utilise resources efficiently, we are also dedicated to reducing our water consumption across our sites. Due to the remote locations and variety of operations that occur at certain facilities, we are currently undertaking exercises to improve the quality of our information gathering, with the aim of setting water reduction targets at our sites

Improving Water use efficiency

Our Irriquest service assists growers in the efficient use of water for irrigation. By providing a near real-time view of soil moisture dynamics, the probes show where roots are using soil moisture and to what depth rainfall and irrigation infiltrates. This data can then be used to implement precision irrigation as and when required by the crop.

Preserving water resources at any scale can be made possible by the introduction of rainwater harvesting systems.

Our drainage and pipes division helps streamline the installation of these systems on farm.