Digestate Lagoons Arrangement Heralds a New Era for South Wales Farm

JCP Solicitors’ Rural Practice team was pleased to support an NFU Member in South Wales in negotiating a Digestate Supply Agreement (DSA) with an anaerobic digestion plant, which allows for the supply and use of digestate over approx. 3000 acres of arable land. The deal allows the anaerobic digestion plant to be able to remove the digestate (being the by-product of the process) and for that digestate to have productive use in agriculture to help reduce fertiliser costs and to improve soil health.

This type of deal is likely to become increasingly common in Wales as farmers work hard to meet their legal responsibilities around storing and processing slurry and silage and also continue to try and improve soil health. Digestate is now widely accepted as being better for the environment than chemical fertilisers and the biogas produced by the anaerobic digestion process can be used to generate electricity to be fed into the National Grid.

A spokesperson for JCP said: “We were pleased to help this client in negotiating a Digestate Supply Agreement with a company that owns and operates an anaerobic digestion plant in Wales. This agreement sees the farmer agree to the storage of digestate on his land and it relates to the supply and management of digestate in return for regular payments. After some detailed negotiations, the Parties were able to agree a long term agreement which will allow the farmer to work with the digestate company on mutually satisfactory terms.”

Richard Anthony, the farmer in question, said: “I am pleased to see this agreement in place and it begins a new era for our business. I am grateful for the sound and well-informed legal guidance I received from Rory and his team at JCP Solicitors, in helping to clarify matters and to keep the deal moving in the right direction. These are increasingly pressured times for farmers, landowners and land managers, and we are all acutely aware of the need to continue to modernise our practices and to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things that help us meet the environmental and economic challenges we face. These are complex issues for complex times and I am pleased to have grasped the nettle on this, by entering a DSA and supporting a more sustainable way of farming.”

For legal support from JCP Solicitors’ Rural Practice team call us on 03333 208644 or email law@jcpsolicitors.co.uk