Farmers across England will be given additional support to take action to reduce water and air pollution from their land, its government has announced.

The funding for the programme will now be almost doubled, with an additional £17m (€19.95m) over the next three years. The new annual budget will be £30m (€35.2m), up from £16.6m (€19.49m) last year.

Over the last 15 years, the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) programme has been one of the main ways to help farmers tackle pollution which results from manure, fertiliser and soil running off into rivers when it rains.

The programme provides free advice to farmers to help them reduce water and air pollution through management of farmyard manure and soils among other things.

The additional funding will cover 100% of England’s farmland, up from 40% of its current coverage, with every farmer able to get advice and support to access a range of solutions to reduce pollution by March 2023.