SFI Pilot questions / thoughts

Against_the_grain

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
S.E
That's my point, they are but they aren't. For example: a nice rectangular field with an almost completely continuous run of hedge, interspersed with hedgerow trees & unqualifying hedgerow trees :scratchhead:
View attachment 976406

This manifests itself as 8 hedges mapped, with 2 unqualifying lengths (less than 20 metres). If hedgerow trees don't qualify as hedges (because the base of the leafy layer is more than 2 metres) then some lengths of hedgerow are too short to qualify. Is it a case of sending in an RLE1 claiming it is a continuous length of hedge including hedgerow trees? The helpline wasn't able to give me any guidance on this.

View attachment 976410
Ergh...I'm out.
 

JonT

Member
Trade
Linked to SFI - released today on DEFRA website...

Environmental land management needs to deliver for farmers, foresters and land managers. Because it’s a big and complex area, it’s tempting to consider these groups of people separately, but for our policies and schemes to truly work, we need to bring the expertise from these groups together.

So that’s what we did. The Environmental Land Management Engagement Group (EEG) is another way that we’re doing co-design.

Check out the group's composition - farming not overly represented!!


Our members
  • Adrian Steele – Soil Association
  • Alice Groom – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
  • Alastair Leake – Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT)
  • Andrew Pearson – Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC)
  • Arlin Rickard – Catchment Based Approach (CaBA)
  • Barnaby Coupe – Wildlife Trust
  • Caroline Ayre – Confo
  • Christopher Stopes – English Organic Forum and Organic Farmers & Growers C.I.C.
  • Claire Robinson – National Farmers Union
  • Helen Chesshire and Emily Hunter – Woodland Trus
  • Graeme Willis – The Countryside Charity
  • Hannah Conway – Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL)
  • Harry Greenfield – Country Land & Business Association Limited (CLA
  • Jenny Phelps – Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG)
  • Jeremy Moody – The Central Association for Agricultural Valuers (CAAV)
  • Julia Aglionby – Uplands Alliance and Foundation for Common Land
  • Jyoti Fernandes – Landworkers' Allianc
  • Lucy Bates – Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF)
  • Lynette Steel – Tenant Farmer Association (TFA
  • Maddy Fitzgerald – The Prince's Countryside Fund
  • Marcus Gilleard – National Trust
  • Martin Lines – Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN)
  • Neville Elstone – Institute of Chartered Foresters
  • Pete Gaskell – Heritage Alliance
  • Phil Stocker – National Sheep Association (NSA)
  • Roz Bulleid – Green Alliance
  • Tom Stuart – World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
  • Vicki Hird – Sustain
 

delilah

Member
Linked to SFI - released today on DEFRA website...

Environmental land management needs to deliver for farmers, foresters and land managers. Because it’s a big and complex area, it’s tempting to consider these groups of people separately, but for our policies and schemes to truly work, we need to bring the expertise from these groups together.

So that’s what we did. The Environmental Land Management Engagement Group (EEG) is another way that we’re doing co-design.

Check out the group's composition - farming not overly represented!!


Our members
  • Adrian Steele – Soil Association
  • Alice Groom – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
  • Alastair Leake – Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT)
  • Andrew Pearson – Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC)
  • Arlin Rickard – Catchment Based Approach (CaBA)
  • Barnaby Coupe – Wildlife Trust
  • Caroline Ayre – Confo
  • Christopher Stopes – English Organic Forum and Organic Farmers & Growers C.I.C.
  • Claire Robinson – National Farmers Union
  • Helen Chesshire and Emily Hunter – Woodland Trus
  • Graeme Willis – The Countryside Charity
  • Hannah Conway – Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL)
  • Harry Greenfield – Country Land & Business Association Limited (CLA
  • Jenny Phelps – Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG)
  • Jeremy Moody – The Central Association for Agricultural Valuers (CAAV)
  • Julia Aglionby – Uplands Alliance and Foundation for Common Land
  • Jyoti Fernandes – Landworkers' Allianc
  • Lucy Bates – Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF)
  • Lynette Steel – Tenant Farmer Association (TFA
  • Maddy Fitzgerald – The Prince's Countryside Fund
  • Marcus Gilleard – National Trust
  • Martin Lines – Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN)
  • Neville Elstone – Institute of Chartered Foresters
  • Pete Gaskell – Heritage Alliance
  • Phil Stocker – National Sheep Association (NSA)
  • Roz Bulleid – Green Alliance
  • Tom Stuart – World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
  • Vicki Hird – Sustain

Despite knowing, and respecting, one or two on that list, I will say that it is absolutely disgusting in the fact that there are so few people with 'mud on their boots'.
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Linked to SFI - released today on DEFRA website...

Environmental land management needs to deliver for farmers, foresters and land managers. Because it’s a big and complex area, it’s tempting to consider these groups of people separately, but for our policies and schemes to truly work, we need to bring the expertise from these groups together.

So that’s what we did. The Environmental Land Management Engagement Group (EEG) is another way that we’re doing co-design.

Check out the group's composition - farming not overly represented!!


Our members
  • Adrian Steele – Soil Association
  • Alice Groom – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
  • Alastair Leake – Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT)
  • Andrew Pearson – Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC)
  • Arlin Rickard – Catchment Based Approach (CaBA)
  • Barnaby Coupe – Wildlife Trust
  • Caroline Ayre – Confo
  • Christopher Stopes – English Organic Forum and Organic Farmers & Growers C.I.C.
  • Claire Robinson – National Farmers Union
  • Helen Chesshire and Emily Hunter – Woodland Trus
  • Graeme Willis – The Countryside Charity
  • Hannah Conway – Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL)
  • Harry Greenfield – Country Land & Business Association Limited (CLA
  • Jenny Phelps – Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG)
  • Jeremy Moody – The Central Association for Agricultural Valuers (CAAV)
  • Julia Aglionby – Uplands Alliance and Foundation for Common Land
  • Jyoti Fernandes – Landworkers' Allianc
  • Lucy Bates – Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF)
  • Lynette Steel – Tenant Farmer Association (TFA
  • Maddy Fitzgerald – The Prince's Countryside Fund
  • Marcus Gilleard – National Trust
  • Martin Lines – Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN)
  • Neville Elstone – Institute of Chartered Foresters
  • Pete Gaskell – Heritage Alliance
  • Phil Stocker – National Sheep Association (NSA)
  • Roz Bulleid – Green Alliance
  • Tom Stuart – World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
  • Vicki Hird – Sustain

Working Farmers... ???????

The one REAL vested interest group seems very light on this body. To be honest, it is pretty crap, but reflects latest Govt (Carry Symonds/Goldsmith? ) mindset on the way rural life is going !!
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
I plan on putting our away farm into the pilot scheme, although it's not without its difficulties. I don't have access to my notes so far but the arable soils advanced standard should be easily achievable, the land advanced standard achievable with about 11% of the farm coming out of production.

The hedgerow entry level standard is much more realistic/attractive than the higher paying levels, and watercourses is a big question mark because a 10m margin around 30% of all watercourses is a big ask for the renumeration offered. In addition to 6m around another 20%. And the entry level payment for watercourses is hardly worth the bother of altering permanent tramlines, etc.

Anticipating an income of 2/3rds BPS, obviously minus the lost margin on approx 11% of land + establishment costs.

Probably just about worth doing on away land with plenty of road miles. More attractive to one man bands who can cut production a bit, spread some work and don't want to/can't farm more intensively.

I will credit them for making changes to the arable soils standard recently to make it much less revolting.
similar to my thoughts right now - income forgone on uncropped % is higher than the payments on arable soils / advanced land standard though so probably not worth doing ....... shame

I cant see uptake being great unless they fix that


hedgerows are the only one that really we can do without it costing us and that on a farm already a long way down the sustainable road with most of the advanced stuff covered, they are asking for too much to come out of production, I'm good with that as long as my lost income is compensated and current rates are miles off that as far as I can tell


Not many farms are in a position to voluntary cut their gross output right now
If that's correct, a 10m margin on 30% of watercourses, then the guy with a lot of watercourses (that's me!) has to leave more ground than neighbour with very few watercourses, in order to get into the higher tier payment brackets.

It will be a spreadsheet job, but not looking good.

Does make you wonder if DEFRA want to look like they're offering a scheme to farmers, but really hope uptake is low = less taxpayer cash spent.

At 10m above sea level and our fielda are surrounded by ditches. 5 miles away on Yorkshire Wolds, and not a ditch in sight, just the odd stream in the dale bottoms.
 

Old apprentice

Member
Arable Farmer
Let's hope all big outfits get stuck in and reduce production significantly then us little guys keep producing with hopefully reasonable income .
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
If that's correct, a 10m margin on 30% of watercourses, then the guy with a lot of watercourses (that's me!) has to leave more ground than neighbour with very few watercourses, in order to get into the higher tier payment brackets.

It will be a spreadsheet job, but not looking good.

Does make you wonder if DEFRA want to look like they're offering a scheme to farmers, but really hope uptake is low = less taxpayer cash spent.

At 10m above sea level and our fielda are surrounded by ditches. 5 miles away on Yorkshire Wolds, and not a ditch in sight, just the odd stream in the dale bottoms.

Exactly forcing those of us with ditches on 3 sides of a 7 acre field to put buffers and rotational ditching to comply to get to the next tier but while there are areas with no ditches get it for free as they don’t have them is a total p!ss take
 

E_B

Member
Location
Norfolk
Just to clarify, you would be getting paid per 100m of watercourse buffers required, and you have to have a 6m buffer along 50% of your courses. To get a larger payment for every 100m of buffer, that 50% must comprise of 6m margins (20%) and 10m margins (30%).

To get the biggest payment available for buffers, your 10m margins should have wild flowers in it.

That's how I remember it without checking the guidance

If your neighbour has less water courses, he is obviously not eligible to claim as many buffer payments as yourself.

However, none of these buffer features are particularly attractive financially.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Linked to SFI - released today on DEFRA website...

Environmental land management needs to deliver for farmers, foresters and land managers. Because it’s a big and complex area, it’s tempting to consider these groups of people separately, but for our policies and schemes to truly work, we need to bring the expertise from these groups together.

So that’s what we did. The Environmental Land Management Engagement Group (EEG) is another way that we’re doing co-design.

Check out the group's composition - farming not overly represented!!


Our members
  • Adrian Steele – Soil Association
  • Alice Groom – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
  • Alastair Leake – Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT)
  • Andrew Pearson – Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC)
  • Arlin Rickard – Catchment Based Approach (CaBA)
  • Barnaby Coupe – Wildlife Trust
  • Caroline Ayre – Confo
  • Christopher Stopes – English Organic Forum and Organic Farmers & Growers C.I.C.
  • Claire Robinson – National Farmers Union
  • Helen Chesshire and Emily Hunter – Woodland Trus
  • Graeme Willis – The Countryside Charity
  • Hannah Conway – Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL)
  • Harry Greenfield – Country Land & Business Association Limited (CLA
  • Jenny Phelps – Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG)
  • Jeremy Moody – The Central Association for Agricultural Valuers (CAAV)
  • Julia Aglionby – Uplands Alliance and Foundation for Common Land
  • Jyoti Fernandes – Landworkers' Allianc
  • Lucy Bates – Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF)
  • Lynette Steel – Tenant Farmer Association (TFA
  • Maddy Fitzgerald – The Prince's Countryside Fund
  • Marcus Gilleard – National Trust
  • Martin Lines – Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN)
  • Neville Elstone – Institute of Chartered Foresters
  • Pete Gaskell – Heritage Alliance
  • Phil Stocker – National Sheep Association (NSA)
  • Roz Bulleid – Green Alliance
  • Tom Stuart – World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
  • Vicki Hird – Sustain

Did you expect farmers to be represented? A genuine question. I have been involved in the delivery of government schemes in the past. Very few if any 'farmers' involved in providing advice, support and form filling. Only real farmer I can think of was Phil Jarvis of Game Conservancy and one of my colleagues who has a family farm near Lincoln. Rest were 'consultants'. Hey ho.
 

DRC

Member
Listening to the TFA webinar this evening, there’s definitely a lot of unrest and confusion amongst tenant farmers.
Janets very good at answering questions without actually saying much.
For instance one small grass upland farmer had worked out that they could only really access the first tier without turning 10% of their land into scrub, with a detrimental affect on the profitability and the bird life. They would then only get just over £900 for the whole farm, which was 10% of their current BPS.
My worry is it’ll be too late for a lot of farms before Defra have sorted anything workable .
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Listening to the TFA webinar this evening, there’s definitely a lot of unrest and confusion amongst tenant farmers.
Janets very good at answering questions without actually saying much.
For instance one small grass upland farmer had worked out that they could only really access the first tier without turning 10% of their land into scrub, with a detrimental affect on the profitability and the bird life. They would then only get just over £900 for the whole farm, which was 10% of their current BPS.
My worry is it’ll be too late for a lot of farms before Defra have sorted anything workable .

The realities coming home to Defra?! The difficulty for civil servants to appreciate is taking the example you give that in effect the chap is currently receiving £9000 BPS I assume if £900 is 10%. Yet £9k is well below the minimum wage. Defra staff might find it difficult to appreciate to that chap hi £9k means he carries on farming. I suspect it may be those folk to whom the consultancy support offered by Defra will be to quietly walk him to retirement. But in upland (and lowland to be frank) there are several thousand like him - after all just look at the average Holding size thread and the average BPS claim. Hey ho.
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
Just to clarify, you would be getting paid per 100m of watercourse buffers required, and you have to have a 6m buffer along 50% of your courses. To get a larger payment for every 100m of buffer, that 50% must comprise of 6m margins (20%) and 10m margins (30%).

To get the biggest payment available for buffers, your 10m margins should have wild flowers in it.

That's how I remember it without checking the guidance

If your neighbour has less water courses, he is obviously not eligible to claim as many buffer payments as yourself.

However, none of these buffer features are particularly attractive financially.

But I believe rotational ditch cleaning is part of one of the standards which is a problem
 
Location
Devon
its not that bad from our calculations so far - some standards do cover income forgone but some really do not

in think the have advanced soil and arable very wrong

@Clive you are missing the crucial point which is that for large farms like you run you can just about make the scheme workable but for the tens of thousands of smaller family farms across the UK both the payment rates/ red tape and rules of this scheme mean as it stands is totally unworkable/ unviable and will DRIVE THESE SMALL FAMILY FARMS ( that have been the backbone of the industry for century's ) OUT OF THE INDUSTRY!

it as simple as that!

And do not forget Clive that these smaller family farms that you and the NFU seem so keen to drive out of the industry buy millions of tonnes of UK grain to feed their beef cattle/sheep etc etc, if these farmers are driven out of the industry and the meat is replaced with sub standard imports ( which the NFU/RT are endorsing should happen ) then the demand/ price for your grain will be a LOT less than it currently is and then even for you the ELMS scheme wont add up....
 

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
That's my point, they are but they aren't. For example: a nice rectangular field with an almost completely continuous run of hedge, interspersed with hedgerow trees & unqualifying hedgerow trees :scratchhead:
View attachment 976406

This manifests itself as 8 hedges mapped, with 2 unqualifying lengths (less than 20 metres). If hedgerow trees don't qualify as hedges (because the base of the leafy layer is more than 2 metres) then some lengths of hedgerow are too short to qualify. Is it a case of sending in an RLE1 claiming it is a continuous length of hedge including hedgerow trees? The helpline wasn't able to give me any guidance on this.

View attachment 976410
It was stated today that the hedges don't need to be mapped to qualify to enter them into the pilot. Just a length you wish to enter.(I think thats right)
I don't know if they need to be mapped eventually though.
 

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
i will only adopt standards that cover income forgone - if it doesn’t stack up financially that will be the pilot feedback they get

Income foregone is not enough.

You are a clever chap Clive, why should they expect to employ your management skills for free?
Who else delivering ELMS/SFI is working for nothing?
Can you call anyone at Defra or the RPA at home on the weekend for some advice?

And you are the only one in the chain that carries any responsibility. There is every chance that they can refuse payment or demand money back should your scheme fail to meet its aims.

You also need to factor in the loss of potential opportunities. The land will not be available for other uses for many years and there is considerable cost to returning them to productivity afterwards IF THEY ALLOW you.

As I've said, "Income foregone is not enough."
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 35.1%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,290
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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