1. Management
How to meet the management requirements in section 1 of your intensive pig and poultry farming permit.
1.1 General management
Produce a written management system
You must develop and operate in line with a written management system – a set of procedures that identifies and minimises the risks of pollution. You must implement your management system as soon as you start operating. A typical permitted farm will need a basic management system that you must keep up to date.
You must read the guidance on how to develop a management system and follow the sections that apply to you. You must also meet all the following standards in this section.
You will have completed a risk assessment as part of your intensive farming permit application. This risk assessment identifies the environmental risks associated with your operation and the measures you will use to reduce those risks. The mitigation measures you identified should form part of your management system.
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) has developed an example management system template.
Management commitment and environmental policy
Your management system must include a statement from you or senior management to confirm your commitment to improve the environmental performance of your farm (BAT 1).
There must also be an environmental policy that includes the continuous improvement of the environmental performance of the farm (BAT 1). This could be a periodic review of raw material use, water use, energy use, and what waste is produced.
See the AHDB model template for an environmental policy statement.
Any planning should include procedures, objectives and targets, and consider financial implications and investment.
Site security
Your site must be secure to prevent vandalism, which is a common cause of pollution incidents. You must provide the following:
- security checks or supervision of people entering the site during normal working hours
- gates that are closed and locked outside of normal working hours, where practicable
- fences or hedges around the perimeter to prevent unauthorised access, where practicable
- locks on facilities such as slurry tank valves and oil tanks
- buildings and stores protected from unauthorised access
- signs warning people not to enter the site without authorisation
Site and equipment maintenance plan
You must carry out regular maintenance inspections to make sure your site infrastructure and equipment is performing to a high standard. You must maintain farm buildings and equipment, keep yard areas clean, and manage pests.
Your plan must show how you will regularly schedule checks, repairs and maintenance, for example, on:
- animal housing – for cracks and damaged areas of walls
- slurry stores such as for damage, deterioration, leakage
- slurry pumps, mixers, separators, irrigators
- water and feed supply systems, feed silos
- the ventilation system and temperature sensors
- air cleaning systems
Display your permit
Staff or contractors whose work may have an impact on the environment must be able to see a copy of the permit.
They should have access to information they need to ensure they comply with the permit. This could include access to this guidance.
Accident prevention and management plan
Your plan must identify how you will deal with potential accidents or prepare for an emergency so that you avoid pollution or minimise it as far as possible.
- a site plan of the farm showing the building layout, drainage systems and water, slurry and wash water storage, fuel and chemical storage
- a plan of action on how you will deal with situations, such as fire, flooding, animal diseases, vandalism, leaking or collapsing slurry stores, oil and chemical spillages
- equipment you have available for dealing with a pollution incident, such as a spill kit and equipment for keeping spills out of surface water drains
- details of the raw materials you have stored on site, including pesticides, biocides, disinfectants, medicines, fuel oil, lubricants, and bedding
You must review this plan at least every 4 years. If an accident happens you should review your response and change the plan if necessary. All staff should be aware of the contents and location of the accident management plan and their role in the event of an accident.
See the AHDB model template for an accident management plan.
Manage staff competence and keep training records
You must teach and train your staff:
- the environmental regulations relevant to your activities and the requirements of the permit
- the environmental risks associated with your farm
- how to plan for an emergency and how to manage one
- equipment maintenance and repair schedules
Training can include formal qualifications or training courses but can also include informal in-house training courses, cascading training to other staff and staff mentoring.
You must keep records of training on the permit and environmental issues for all employees and contractors.
Climate change adaptation
You must consider the risks a changing climate poses to your operations and have appropriate climate change adaptation planning integrated into your management system.
You must complete a climate change adaptation risk assessment for your farm. This should detail both the risks and outline potential mitigations.
You should refer to the following guidance on how to complete the risk assessment:
- intensive farming: examples for your adapting to climate change risk assessment
- climate change: risk assessment and adaptation planning in your management system
- AHDB model template for a climate change adaptation risk assessment
1.2 Energy efficiency
Basic energy efficiency measures
You will need to show that you design, operate and maintain your farm using basic energy efficiency measures. You may have a climate change agreement.
Efficient use of energy
You must follow energy efficiency measures to minimise the use of energy and record your usage.
You must describe how you ensure you use energy efficiently at your farm. This may already be contained in your management system. Include a calculation of the specific energy consumption of the activities you do by monitoring of energy usage and understanding consumption patterns. Identify measures and actions to improve energy efficiency in key areas, including:
- insulation of the buildings
- use of efficient lighting
- optimisation of any heating or ventilation in the housing systems
- heat recovery
- natural ventilation
You must keep a record of the amount of energy you use. At least once a year you must take regular meter readings using suitable calibrated meters or invoices and record the results. For new farms, you could monitor the main energy-consuming processes within the animal houses (heating, ventilation, light) separately, where practicable.
You must regularly review and update your energy efficiency plan as part of your management system.
You must have operating and maintenance measures in place in relevant areas. For example, for:
- heating or cooling
- ventilation
- lighting
- other consumption (such as feed preparation and distribution)
In addition, you must use at least 2 of the following techniques to use energy efficiently on a farm (BAT 8):
- high efficiency heating or cooling and ventilation systems
- optimise heating or cooling and ventilation systems and management, especially where you use air cleaning systems
- insulate walls, floors and ceilings of animal housing
- energy efficient lighting
- heat exchangers
- heat pumps for heat recovery
- heat recovery with heated and cooled littered floor (combi deck system)
- natural ventilation
1.3 Use raw materials efficiently
Using resources efficiently will benefit the environment and could save you money. You can do this if you:
- reduce use of harmful materials
- substitute materials for less harmful ones
As part of an accident management plan, you must produce and maintain a list of the materials you use which could pollute the environment. The list should cover:
- biocides, including disinfectants, wood preservatives and slimicides
- pesticides, including herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, vertebrate control products and biological pesticides
- veterinary medicines
- agricultural fuel oils and lubricants
- bedding
If the disinfectants, pesticides and veterinary medicines are on an approved list you do not need to list them individually. You should include the:
- category of the materials you use
- total quantities you use each year
- maximum quantities you store on site
Find the approved list for:
You should list each product not on an approved list by trade name or by active ingredient. You should supply:
- manufacturers’ safety data sheets
- Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) data sheets
- information on potential environmental harm
Your list should show what medicines you store on site in normal circumstances. You do not need to anticipate disease outbreaks.
Give a description of the types of bedding you use. You do not need to record the quantities stored.
You do not need to include foodstuffs on this list.
You must review your list every year. Use the same format as you used in your permit application. Include it as an appendix to your accident management plan.
Use water efficiently
You must keep a record of the amount of water you use.
At least once a year you must:
- record how much water you have used since your last record
- describe the method you used to record the amount, such as water meter readings, invoices
You should explain how you have separated out different usage, such as livestock water consumption, different water supplies. You may only be able to do this if you are building new housing or if your existing water supply system allows.
If you have a permitted abstraction licence the permit will specify the required frequency of recording.
To use less water, you must use a combination of the following techniques (BAT 5):
- inspect water supply pipes regularly and repair leaks as soon as possible
- use high pressure cleaners for cleaning animal housing and equipment
- select and use equipment that is suitable for the animal type (such as nipple drinkers, round drinkers, water troughs), making sure the animal’s drinking water requirements are always met
- calibrate drinking water equipment every year, check and change it if necessary
- reuse uncontaminated rainwater as cleaning water – this may not apply to existing farms if doing this is too expensive or if there is a biosecurity risk to the animals
Use water efficient techniques wherever possible. For example:
- vacuuming, scraping or mopping in preference to hosing down
- reusing wash water where practicable
- using trigger controls on all hoses, hand lances and washing equipment
In addition, you should:
- keep clean and dirty water separate to increase the likelihood of re-use – possibly after treatment
- insulate exposed water pipes above ground or install suitable systems to reduce the risk of freezing pipes
- install stop taps and drain valves
- install covers on water tanks
1.4 Avoidance, recovery and disposal of wastes produced by the activities
You must take measures to ensure that you avoid or reduce the amount of waste produced. For unavoidable waste you must apply the waste hierarchy. It ranks waste management options by what’s best for the environment. The stages are:
- Prevention
- Preparing for re-use
- Recycling
- Other recovery
- Disposal
You must:
- consider if you can avoid producing waste
- consider how to reduce the waste you cannot avoid producing
- characterise and quantify each type of waste you produce
- describe which wastes you will recover and which you will dispose
If you propose to dispose of waste, then you must:
- explain why it is not possible to recover it, for example because it is not technically feasible nor cost effective
- describe how you plan to avoid or reduce an adverse effect on the environment
- follow waste disposal law
See the guidance in section 2.3 ‘Operating techniques’ about sending waste off site.
Go to the next section: 2. Operations.
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