WWTOnline A group of farmers in Dorset have been equally rewarded by Wessex Water for growing cover crops that brought reductions in the levels of nitrates that enter Poole Harbour.   ‘The work to protect the site came as the result of a first-of-its-kind uniform price scheme by online environmental trading platform EnTrade. The new scheme, called Fundspreader, ensures that farmers in a catchment who have agreed to carry out environmentally friendly farming measures are all paid the same rate (£/kg N) for doing so and the reward they receive is based on the amount (kg N) that they save.

It differs from the conventional form of ‘reverse auctions’ previously implemented by EnTrade, whereby farmers competed for funding from environmental beneficiaries, such as water companies, by indicating the rate that they were prepared to receive. EnTrade developed Fundspreader with the help of Exeter University and trialled it in February 2019 after listening to feedback from the Poole Harbour farmers, who have worked closely with EnTrade since it launched out of Wessex Water in 2015.