Applying for waste exemption online with the Whole Farm Approach

Do you need to apply for exemptions from the new Waste Regulations?

You can now apply for these online with Defra's new internet service for farmers, the Whole Farm Approach, at www.wholefarm.defra.gov.uk. The Whole Farm Approach allows Defra to work in partnership with other organisations – including the Environment Agency – to help reduce paperwork and to contribute to the joined-up government agenda.

The Whole Farm Approach offers an alternative route for applying for your licence than completing the paper version available from the Environment Agency. The ‘Waste Module' will be included within the Appraisal, the electronic self assessment questionnaire for farmers designed to make form filling easier.

The Waste Module (and the questionnaires included within it) have been developed in partnership with the Environment Agency, with the questions specifically designed to help with waste management on your farm, and will deliver legal registration of exemptions for your agricultural waste activities.

To assist you with understanding the new requirements, attached to the electronic version behind the questionnaires is a rich reference library that provides you with easy access to advice and guidance appropriate to the particular question.

To take advantage of the new service, you need to sign-up on the Whole Farm Approach website; www.wholefarm.defra.gov.uk.

The Whole Farm Approach will continue to be developed to offer new functions that will let you transact business electronically with Defra and other bodies.

For more information on waste management go to: www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste or www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/waste.

Notes to editors

Farmers registering exemptions from waste management licensing for their existing activities are required to do so by 15 May 2007. Any new waste activities can be registered at any time but should always be registered before farmers start them. Through the Whole Farm Approach it's simple to amend the questionnaires at any time to notify new activities or remove those that are no longer carried out.

The Whole Farm Approach (WFA) is Defra's new internet service, designed to lighten the regulatory burden on farmers and growers in England. [I1] It offers a faster and more efficient way of doing business with government for the farming industry, and should help reduce the number of duplicated requests farmers receive from Defra and its agencies.

It has been developed with the farming industry, the wider Defra family (inc Environment Agency, Rural Payments Agency) and other regulators including Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive.

Developed as an electronic only system, it uses an “intelligent” questionnaire system which makes form filling easier.

Provides convenient links to a comprehensive library (AdLib developed by the University of Herts) that provides farmers with access to up-to-date best practice advice and guidance (for example, all the cross compliance handbooks).

Whole Farm Approach will help farmers and growers to:

Reduce the quantity of data they submit by avoiding duplication

More easily understand the regulations affecting their business

Access relevant advice and guidance

Provide evidence of good farming practice for Cross Compliance and other regulatory processes

Over time, will reduce the risk of inspections for a well run farm completing the Whole Farm Appraisal

The WFA includes a number of useful tools, including access to a self assessment questionnaire (the Appraisal), benchmarking tools and other useful links.

The Whole Farm Approach provides access to a number of surveys that farmers can complete electronically.

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