Exploring the relationship between farming and water management
Why our precious water resources are key to good farming
When water lies on the top of soil after a heavy downpour, or the soils blow away in a dusty cloud during a dry spell, you are looking at soil without structure. Lifeless, nutrient starved and unfit to sustain plant growth.
When soil readily allows water to infiltrate, when the ground holds it moisture even during the long hot summers, then you know the soil is healthy, well-structured and full of the biology necessary to sustain life.
All of which is why water management and soil health are so intricately and irrevocably entwined.
Listen to the podcast here.
During the next six episodes of the Farming Social Hub’s new series, Farming with Water, we explore the relationship between the water ways and the farmed landscape. We look at how farmers are changing their farming practices to manage water better; we look at the holistic impact of soil health and water quality on nature; we meet some of nature’s water-based engineers and we talk to the people who are working alongside farmers to create a landscape that is both producing high, quality food and providing a home for nature.
This series is sponsored by the Norfolk Rivers Trust (NRT), an independent charity whose mission is to restore, protect and enhance the water environments of Norfolk for people and wildlife.
Among the work undertaken by the NRT is aquatic habitat creation, conservation & restoration, education & engagement and land management and farm advice. Over the six weeks of interviews we will get insight into each of these strands of work, through conversations with the people working at the heart of waterway management.
The NRT has a team of experienced ecologists and advisors who take a river catchment-based approach (CaBA) to develop practical, cost-effective and integrated long-term solutions.
Working across Norfolk (and in the Cam and Ely Ouse Catchment), the scale of the challenge necessitates partnership working with a wide range of organisations including farmers, landowners, water companies, government bodies and the third sector, as well as the general public.
In the first episode, available here, we meet NRT chief executive Ed Bramham-Jones.