THE NFU has called for action to stop a fly-tipping "epidemic" blighting the British countryside.

It told Keep Britain Tidy campaign’s annual conference in Leeds that dumped mattresses, carpets, dishwashers, furniture and black bags of household waste on farmland is becoming widespread with two thirds of all farms affected.

Last year, there were 900,000 incidents of fly-tipping across England – up five per cent on 2015.

Rural tourism contributes £130m to the nation’s economy and the NFU says more needs to be done to protect the countryside from fly-tipping.

Under the current rules, farmers and landowners are left facing hefty bills to remove vast amounts of rubbish dumped illegally on their land.

The NFU wants:

n local authorities and the police to help landowners in the clean-up and reporting of fly- tipped waste;

n local authorities, police, land owners, and the Environment Agency to work together on the issue;

n it should not be the sole responsibility of the landowner to deal with this crime and landowners are currently saddled with the cost of removing fly tipped waste.

Phil Jarvis, NFU environment forum member, told the conference: "We have seen a huge increase in the number of incidents in recent years and it really has become a scourge of farmland across the country.

"The rubbish can be costly and time consuming for farmers to remove, it’s dangerous to human health, harmful to wildlife and livestock and, in some cases, fly-tipped waste pollutes watercourses and contaminates land.

"What many people don’t realise is that when incidents of fly-tipping take place on private land it is the farmers and landowners’ responsibility to remove the illegally dumped waste, costing people hundreds of thousands of pounds every year."

In many cases, fly-tippers smash down gates, barriers and security cameras to dump illegally.

Mr Jarvis said: "To really clamp down on this huge and growing problem, we want to see more communication between local authorities, police forces and the Environment Agency to give those impacted more confidence to report incidents that lead to investigation and prosecution, as well as more stop and search initiatives."