A low-tech way of dealing with pollution on a Herefordshire farm could offer one solution to a major environmental headache for the county.

At Upper Moorend Farm near Bromyard, a mixed farm owned and run by father and son John and Joe Orgee, a series of 11 stepped wetland “pools” are being filled with aquatic plants intended to absorb phosphate and other nutrients.

These take water from roofs and land drains from three chicken sheds and ranges holding 48,000 free-range birds at a time, which supply eggs to Noble Foods.

Noble and Marks & Spencer have each part-funded the trial, working with river conservation group the Wye and Usk Foundation (WUF).

While chicken manure has a value as a fertiliser, it is high in phosphate which if not taken up by crops can build up in the soil and can leach into water courses, where it causes algal “blooms”, lethal for other river life, WUF catchment advisor Bridie Whittle explains.

The strip chosen is a low point in the farm, prone to waterlogging, which falls away by some 6-7 metres, providing a gradient for the pools, which cover 900 square metres in all.

Five of these have already been planted with nutrient-hungry marginal plants such as yellow flag iris, with the remaining six to follow in spring.

“By next year the pools will be filled with plants,” Ms Whittle says. “We anticipate that the plants will mop up and trap nutrients from the drains and hope to find that nutrient levels dropping from one pool to the next.”

It will take careful monitoring though to establish that the scheme really does offer measurable long-term improvements in water quality, she cautions.

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“We are really grateful for the enthusiasm of the Orgee family in trialling this approach,” she says.

“We are keen to see more of these nature-based solutions as they deliver multiple benefits, reducing flood risk and increasing biodiversity and wildlife habitat. But each farm will need a site-specific approach.”

Noble Foods environmental manager Glenn Evans says: “A survey, repeated in three or five years, would also give a biodiversity net gain ‘score’. It’s an easy win.”

He adds: “We wouldn’t have put funding into this if we didn’t have the cooperation of the farmers. Retailers also want to address the water quality issue. But we would also like to see the Government investing in things like this.”

The company is also looking at other ways of addressing the phosphates issue, he adds. “Stripping it out (of poultry waste) and exporting it out of the county, while using the other nutrients which aren’t in surplus on the land, would be the golden ticket, but we are looking at all the options.”

Joe Orgee, whose idea the diversification into poultry was, says: “I thought something had to be done, and it was an unproductive strip of land. It was a no-brainer.

“For our business we have to work with the environment, especially if we want to expand the farm. Something like this is likely to be a necessity in future, so we’re future-proofing the business.”

His father John adds: “If we have to do it, we have to do it.”