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“Think minimum tillage,” he said.

One potato farmer, Sam Bright from Woodmanton, told BBC News he had worked with the Wye and Usk Foundation to improve soil conservation through a range of measures, including planting buffer strips of grass round field edges; increasing pastureland; and using minimum tillage, which avoids the traditional method of overturning soil with a plough.

Applying nitrogen is an expensive process, it’s another tillage step, and for farmers trying to make a go with minimum tillage practices, it just doesn’t pay.

Easier and easier Across the country there are more than 160,000 farmers using basins or other minimum tillage methods, including large-scale commercial farmers.

Now, machines are available that combine several operations in a process called minimum tillage.