Sustainable Farming Incentive: how the scheme will work in 2022

Sustainable farming incentive details published today 2 December 2021

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delilah

Member
How much for the individual elements , sorry

They are still at the 'making it up as we go along' stage, which is fine, it still has a way to go yet, but means it's utterly pointless trying to do any budgeting on what it may look like by full roll out.
We have been accepted to be a pilot, the job for next week is to find out where that now stands given that the SFI is unrecognizable today from what it looked like when we applied to be a pilot a matter of weeks ago.
 

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
They are still at the 'making it up as we go along' stage, which is fine, it still has a way to go yet, but means it's utterly pointless trying to do any budgeting on what it may look like by full roll out.
We have been accepted to be a pilot, the job for next week is to find out where that now stands given that the SFI is unrecognizable today from what it looked like when we applied to be a pilot a matter of weeks ago.
You can be our guinea pig , no offence intended
 

HallFarmBill

Member
Arable Farmer
Sorry not to be clearer - this new rule only applies to the main scheme, rolling out from next year (not the pilot). That's because the pilot covers a wider range of standards and we're not yet ready to manage the overlaps with CS and we wanted to start by testing how SFI works without the added complexity of CS options in the mix.

If you've a question about your pilot agreement then yes please do ring the RPA.
Thanks Janet.

Will the option to mix CS & SFI be added during the pilot? A pilot phase where we're effectively being employed to provide the learning & feedback would seem a logical time to try things. otherwise our pilot will be limited to the three fields that aren't in CS.

If not, can we be in the pilot phase & the 'normal' SFI with different land parcels at the same time if we wanted?
 

Goffer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorkshire
After 31 pages , 605 comments and sadly not a great deal of achievement why oh why do defra not just say come 2028 boys and girls your on your own . Save everyone a lot of stress, time and money and see what really would happen in the 21st century . I doubt that much would really change . I mean the government saved the finacial institution’s reasonably rapidly in 2008 and addressed covid with some degree of understandable urgency so let agriculture self govern and if interventions are needed so be it . It’s not like there that bothered about farmers are they ?????
 

midlandslad

Member
Location
Midlands
One thing the SFI may reduce is sham CFA agreements where the land owner claims the BPS and the farmer pays a reduced rent. Will be difficult to police the rules for the land owner in such a scenario.
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
After 31 pages , 605 comments and sadly not a great deal of achievement why oh why do defra not just say come 2028 boys and girls your on your own . Save everyone a lot of stress, time and money and see what really would happen in the 21st century . I doubt that much would really change . I mean the government saved the finacial institution’s reasonably rapidly in 2008 and addressed covid with some degree of understandable urgency so let agriculture self govern and if interventions are needed so be it . It’s not like there that bothered about farmers are they ?????
Oh Hell no they couldn't give a t0ss about us. Too many farmers think they're out to get us, but we're not important enough for them to bother to have an opinion about us. All that matters is feeding the bureaucracy machine. How do they do that without constant interference? Imagine all those extra unemployed bureaucrats.....
 

devonbeef

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon UK
Oh Hell no they couldn't give a t0ss about us. Too many farmers think they're out to get us, but we're not important enough for them to bother to have an opinion about us. All that matters is feeding the bureaucracy machine. How do they do that without constant interference? Imagine all those extra unemployed bureaucrats.....
The other idea is maybe they do know what they are doing. Our land is wanted for carbon offsetting rewilding etc.What better way to free up land than make the land un farmable first, They will be queuing up at the gated for our handouts however small, and they will do what we say, Food , we will get that on boats!!!!!!!!! probably not thought by all of who are in government but may be the ones running the show.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
After 31 pages , 605 comments and sadly not a great deal of achievement why oh why do defra not just say come 2028 boys and girls your on your own . Save everyone a lot of stress, time and money and see what really would happen in the 21st century . I doubt that much would really change . I mean the government saved the finacial institution’s reasonably rapidly in 2008 and addressed covid with some degree of understandable urgency so let agriculture self govern and if interventions are needed so be it . It’s not like there that bothered about farmers are they ?????
Isn't that what they are doing? But carrying on with a tweaked environmental policy.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Of course we would not like you to do that, for any reason at all. Meadows are incredibly precious and important.

I'd suggest that if you have meadows and you would like to have them in a scheme then your best option would be to go into / stay in CS until we introduce the relevant standards into SFI - we'll be adding more standards in 2023, 2024 and 2025 and we'll provide a smooth way for you to transfer from CS into SFI when SFI is ready.
Janet.

We are a lowland, non-lfa all grassland farm but CS has never been an option for us here. The local target criteria are all about arable.

Your advice is useless to us. In sure we are not alone.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Isn't that what they are doing? But carrying on with a tweaked environmental policy.

Over the weekend I was tidying up some papers and rediscovered the ELS Soil Management Plan templates. As with most things in life (bell bottom trousers spring to mind) what goes around comes around! At Croptec I ran into the son of a farmer now sadly passed who has signed upto be a SFI pilot farm and who told me he has dug out of the filing cabinet the management plans and background papers I prepared for his father in 2005 to enter and comply with ELS. It all looks very familiar. Whether with wheat at £200 farmers will be as inclined to embrace or whether the governments objectives are achieved only time will tell.
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
Morning Janet, could you please confirm that it will be written in the terms & conditions of any ELMS agreement that for the full term of any agreement DEFRA will alone police & monitor the scheme, you would understand that it would put a slightly different complexion on the scheme if we were to discover half way through that the government had transferred policing of the agreement to a commercial company.
 
So, if I employ an agent to help me with my application, how much money will actually be left in my pocket after I have paid all the additional costs?

Very little I suspect, on a medium sized family farm.
We're designing the service so that you won't need to pay someone to fill the forms in for you - we're working with farmers to do this, if you'd be up for getting involved in that to help us make things as straightforward as possible, let me know- the more farmers' eyes we have on this, the better we can make it
 

HatsOff

Member
Mixed Farmer
W

We are certainly reading all the feedback carefully and will continue to learn and improve on that basis - eg here is a post explaining what we've changed so far based on feedback: https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2021/12/02/sfi-standards/
That blog post doesn't discuss payment rates or how to decrease the proposed administrative burden.

So I'm not sure how closely DEFRA are listening...
We're designing the service so that you won't need to pay someone to fill the forms in for you - we're working with farmers to do this, if you'd be up for getting involved in that to help us make things as straightforward as possible, let me know- the more farmers' eyes we have on this, the better we can make it
Will the time to undertake the administration be costed at least minimum wage?
 
I'm not going to get through 20 odd pages so if this has been asked already I apologise.

What will be the inspection process, criteria, frequency, penalties for errors, etc?

It looks like I'm only going to be eligible for the lower tier of the options. Already doing OM monitoring, so it's just the added ppwork really.
On a sub 100Ha claim I'm probably favouring being left alone.
We are making the inspections more supportive and less punitive - we won't use penalties for errors, we will help you sort out the issue. Here is the relevant part of the document we published on this:

The SFI approach to agreement monitoring will be simpler, fairer and more proportionate than EU-based schemes.

We want to create an approach in which farmers acting in good faith (the vast majority) feel confident and supported – while taking effective action in the minority of instances where that’s not the case. This new approach is particularly important if something goes wrong – farmers should feel confident in explaining the situation, and confident that Defra will support them in getting back on track.

To achieve this, we are designing an approach in which:

  • SFI standards and guidance will be clear – so farmers know what they need to do
  • there is flexibility to allow farmers to take an approach that works on their farm in a way that still delivers the outcomes, rather than insisting on detailed prescriptions
  • farmers are confident in how to demonstrate they have delivered the standards – they should know what evidence is needed, and not feel pressured to keep excessive evidence or worried about unfair penalties if something doesn’t work out according to plan
  • self-assessment by farmers will be a key part of agreement monitoring – farmers will submit an annual declaration to confirm progress in delivering the agreement
  • the self-assessment approach will be backed up by checks on eligibility and delivery of the standards – where possible, we will also use remote monitoring (such as satellites) to increase efficiency and ease for farmers and Defra
  • where there is evidence of fraud or illegality, we will of course pursue that in line with the law on those issues
Inevitably, there may be cases where it has not been possible for a farmer to implement part of a standard, and so a payment adjustment needs to be made. Where things go wrong, we will first seek to help farmers to fix it, on a starting assumption of good faith rather than wrongdoing. The SFI (as with the new domestic Countryside Stewardship agreements) will not involve additional ‘penalties’ being applied on top of the adjustment. This moves away from the approach taken under EU-based schemes.

The SFI will also move away from the approach under previous schemes, where farmers had payments withheld on suspicion of a breach. Sometimes this led to payments being withheld for long periods when a breach had not actually occurred. Generally, under SFI (unless there are exceptional circumstances) we will wait until it is clear a breach has occurred before deciding whether action needs to be taken.
 

Azlett

Member
Location
Taunton
Thank you. Yes I am lobbying the members of the Defra ELMS engagement group. I actually received an email from Defra asking me not to, so on that basis I would encourage everyone on here who has views on what the SFI should look like to send them in, contact details on the attached.
Hi,
Did you send a group email to them all with your proposla documents? What replies did you get?

All the best
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 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

  • 1,294
  • 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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