Muck-spreading: The smellier the better as farmers ask for patience
Farmers are asking people to be patient with the smell of manure as they spread it on their fields to prepare the land for next year’s crops. Muck-spreading is the process of distributing animal manure across farmland as a natural fertiliser and typically takes place twice a year, in spring and late summer. Although “it…
Farmers are asking people to be patient with the smell of manure as they spread it on their fields to prepare the land for next year’s crops.
Muck-spreading is the process of distributing animal manure across farmland as a natural fertiliser and typically takes place twice a year, in spring and late summer.
Although “it might smell a bit”, according to farmer Ben Clappison, from Cowlam, East Yorkshire, he says it is important as it helps improve the land and reduces the amount of chemical fertilisers.
He says: “[It helps] to make everything a lot healthier and improve soil organic matter and really push towards more organic fertilisers rather than inorganic.”
Ben adds: “Our inorganics are manufactured fertilisers and a lot of raw products come from abroad. There’s a lot of mileage on it, a lot of CO2 emitted in manufacturing it and it’s expensive. Whereas this is coming out of the farm where it’s produced.”
Ben, who also spreads on other farmland as a contractor, says the process is carefully mapped out using the latest technology.
Manure from cattle, pigs and poultry is scooped from heaps in the fields and carefully weighed to be spread evenly.
Ben also uses human waste, known as sludge and taken from sewage works, to enrich the soil.
However, there are strict rules that farmers must follow when spreading sludge and Ben says he uses GPS to ensure it is only placed in the correct areas.
According to DEFRA, it can only be spread on crops that cannot be eaten directly from the land, such as wheat, barley and oil seed rape.
“We have a spreading app which has everything mapped out and all of the buffer zones and strips where you can’t go anywhere near.
“We have to look after the fields, the soils, the environment because it has to be sustainable for not just my generation but generations to come.”
