Sustainable farming incentive details published today 2 December 2021

FARMERJERRY · Dec 2, 2021

@beef 1 -about £6000 if you do soil organic matter assessments have no bare soil over winter and 15% of land into herbal leys plus BPS payment (which is reducing) plus any other payments for other standards that are yet to be announced which you can get-such as hedges etc
£3400 if you don't do herbal leys

steveR · Dec 2, 2021

redsloe said:
We are in year 1 of a CS agreement that covers approx 60% of our farmed area. Mostly permanent pasture and herb rich leys.
Presumably we could enter our arable land into the soil element assuming we satisfy the relevant criteria as well as the CS from next year?

Good question, but I expect that the old double funding payment no-no, will prevail...

Wombat · Dec 2, 2021

Janet Hughes Defra said:
You can get paid either £28/ha or £58/ha a year to look after your improved grassland soil by doing a combination of:

not having more than 5% bare land over winter
testing your soil organic matter every 5 years and making a plan to improve it
(for the £58/ha payment only: having at least 15% of the land in herbal leys

You can do this on however many parcels of land you want. The percentages apply to the amount of land you decide to put into the scheme.

How does the herbal lays work if all grassland is permenant pasture?

steveR · Dec 2, 2021

farenheit said:
@Janet Hughes Defra, I'll take this as it should be read, which is that we are being offered a contract to provide a service, and so should be paid an amount that would be perceived as profitable. I think all these amounts are very unprofitable. £44/hectare, from the smallest to the largest farm, will barely cover the adminstrative cost. I would ask you, when you procure services within the civil service, be that admin costs, or specialist assistance (perhaps from legal services or marketing, or IT which is your specialism) what you must pay? Probably in the order of £80-250/hour. Why must farmers do everything for what would appear to be well below minimum wage? In the past with BPS also, farmers probably feel that the CS schemes are a nice add-on, but without that, these need to stand on their own feet. They simply don't. Its your choice to offer that price but you'll find those who sit down and do the sums will see that there really is little point.

Edit: notwithstanding that I think you personally are doing a very good job with a complete lack of ideology of what British agriculture should be from the SoS. There is some serious fiddling round the edges here, with so little ambition.

Well put.

B'o'B · Dec 2, 2021

Janet Hughes Defra said:
Yes, you can do that now, in the main scheme from 2022 you can have both CS and SFI on the same parcel, so long as we're not paying you twice for the same thing, and they're not contradictory actions

I've got half the farm in AB15 would this be excluded from going into SFI?

There are additional actions in the SFI to AB15 requirements, but also some overlaps. How do we know if we meet the threshold for double payments? will there be a list showing which CS options are okay and which are not?

Courier · Dec 2, 2021

Janet Hughes Defra said:
None yet, we're thinking about this and haven't decided what to do yet - what do you think we should do?

I think you should be in discussions with Terravesta or the Biomass Powerstations (Renewable energy) will become short of fuel....

https://twitter.com/terravestafuels

beef 1 · Dec 2, 2021

So far , that looks like next ta nowt for a permanent grass farm ? .

Greythundercloudys · Dec 2, 2021

Would need to be 100 a hectare to be any worth while. Can't see that happening up here, the snp will he to give farmers a standard basic safety net payment as no matter how dear a lmbs is or cow, hill, upland farming on poorer farms with pp can't survive without some for of payments.

steveR · Dec 2, 2021

beef 1 said:
So far , that looks like next ta nowt for a permanent grass farm ? .

Got the message @beef 1 , you are not wanted anymore....

Greythundercloudys · Dec 2, 2021

90 percent of farms in Scotland will be upland with all pp and lfass. Up around Campbelltown is a million miles away from Essex in terms of farming.

tepapa · Dec 2, 2021

Does anyone forsee the cost of soil organic matter sampling going up

?

Hindsight · Dec 2, 2021

beef 1 said:
So far , that looks like next ta nowt for a permanent grass farm ? .

Better get it ploughed up mate! Or down to trees!!!

Hampton · Dec 2, 2021

tepapa said:
Does anyone forsee the cost of soil organic matter sampling going up ?

@Janet Hughes Defra
Soil organic matter can be measured satisfactorily using the ignition test (burn off the organic matter leaving the soil).
Every farmer in the country has the ways and means to do this at home.
Will this suffice or must we use a specialist lab?

Humble Village Farmer · Dec 2, 2021

Greythundercloudys said:
90 percent of farms in Scotland will be upland with all pp and lfass. Up around Campbelltown is a million miles away from Essex in terms of farming.

Yes, in a different country and under a different jurisdiction. This discussion is about the scheme in England.

Janet Hughes Defra · Dec 2, 2021

steveR said:
Good question, but I expect that the old double funding payment no-no, will prevail...

double funding only means we won't pay for the same actions twice. There's nothing to stop you having a CS agreement on some parcels and SFI soils standards on others, or having 2 different agreements on the same parcel so long as they're not paying for the same thing, or actions that are incompatible

serf · Dec 2, 2021

Wombat said:
Yeah so the Vet gets £100/hr and we get about £10/hr for doing the rest of the standards with all the risk

Sounds about the norm ....

Janet Hughes Defra · Dec 2, 2021

T

Courier said:
I think you should be in discussions with Terravesta or the Biomass Powerstations (Renewable energy) will become short of fuel....

https://twitter.com/terravestafuels

Thanks I'll take a look

Janet Hughes Defra · Dec 2, 2021

B'o'B said:
I've got half the farm in AB15 would this be excluded from going into SFI?

There are additional actions in the SFI to AB15 requirements, but also some overlaps. How do we know if we meet the threshold for double payments? will there be a list showing which CS options are okay and which are not?

Yes we'll provide clear guidance on which CS options are ok and which are not. If it overlaps, you can't have both on the same parcel, essentially. But you can put the rest into SFI, and add the CS parcels once your CS agreement ends, if you wanted to do that.

Yale · Dec 2, 2021

2-5 years and SFI will be redundant.

Carbon trading is the new gold rush and in that time the methods of being paid for this will be better developed.C payments will be the new replacement for any and all government schemes.

We can all semi retire and produce a lot less food whilst looking after our farms in a C sensitive manner.

The futures bright…..Carbon black.

serf · Dec 2, 2021

Goffer said:
If you serious about controlling pollution and doing the right thing for the environment you need investment in capital projects that prevent it happening.

This is what I thought they were going to do. Not this sort of nonsense,
They may aswell saved there time what a farce !

Sustainable farming incentive details published today 2 December 2021

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0 %

Up to 25%

25-50%

50-75%

75-100%

100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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