You are in > Home > SAC Consulting > Consultancy Services > Consultancy Services I - R > Organic Farming > Common Questions > Converting The Farm > What are the main elements of the Conversion Plan?
Featured Topics
- Technical Notes
-
- Technical publications funded by the Scottish Government
What are the main elements of the Conversion Plan?
The conversion plan must cover the period of a complete rotation and should include the following information where applicable:
- a) Soil management programme
- Use of organic manures, cultivation procedures (e.g. soil aeration using subsoiler, avoidance of deep ploughing and early ploughing)
- Use of winter cover crops
- b) Cropping plans and proposed crop rotations
- c) The programme for the supply of nutrients to the plants
- Careful storage and application of farmyard manure, silage effluent
- Application of FYM in late winter, not early winter
- Prompt incorporation of FYM
- Application of FYM to priority crops, e.g. silage, 2nd and 3rd year arable crops
- Rotational application of purchased inputs (e.g. lime, rock phosphate) on the basis of regular soil analysis
- d) The programme for the control of weeds and pest and diseases
- High seed rates
- Competitive species and varieties
- Mechanical cultivation
- e) Sections allocated to each main enterprise (e.g. cereals, vegetables)
- f) A Livestock Management Plan showing what changes are to be made to each livestock enterprise on the farm in order to meet the requirements of the standards:
- I. Practices for livestock conversion
- II. Feeding regimes
- III. Grazing practices
- IV. Other appropriate disease control programmes
- g) Environmental conservation measures
- h) The results of a recent soil analysis and any recommendations made
- i) Field records and histories, including a plan of the holding showing the Ordnance Survey numbers of the fields, a history of the field inputs and crops for the previous 4 years and a timetable for the conversion stages and completion.