Sustainable Farming Incentive: how the scheme will work in 2022

Sustainable farming incentive details published today 2 December 2021

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Introductory level: actions​

You must do the following actions to be paid £27 per hectare.

Read the section of this guide about evidence you should keep.

1. Manage fields for grazing​

This action will increase biodiversity and help reduce run-off.

Do one of the following:

  • graze to keep an average sward height of at least 5cm, over at least 75% of the area of grazed pasture during the growing season
  • graze rotationally, with rest periods
This was lifted from the Govenment website this afternoon .
What’s this @Janet Hughes Defra?
How will the outcomes you believe will be delivered be measured?
Please ask your advisors how I should explain to the ruminants that inhabit my farm they shouldnt crop the grass short and if they do how will your inspectors (who don’t have a track record of being trusted by farmers) be able to gather evidence that this average award length has been maintained or not?
How is this in any way enforceable? If the outcomes are not measurable and the standards are not enforceable it is a nonsense.
That is one of the standards for the SFI pilot, which involves about 900 farmers who are working with us to test the new scheme.

The standards that will be available for everyone in 2022 are set out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ng-incentive-how-the-scheme-will-work-in-2022. They cover arable and horticultural soils, improved grassland soils, moorland and rough grazing, and an annual health and welfare review.
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
Do you move your livestock from one field to another to graze closing the gate behind you?
If you do this, you have done enough to satisfy the section you quoted. £27/ha is yours, after you soil test for organic matter.
That’s your interpretation and common sense suggests you might well be correct but I doubt you are or ever have been a government employee.
 

Velcro Gloves

Member
Livestock Farmer
@Janet Hughes Defra , is the £522 the only payment for the annual health and welfare review. Is it going to be worth the hassle for me to apply for it as it is the only thing in the sfi that I'm eligible for at the moment?
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
That’s your interpretation and common sense suggests you might well be correct but I doubt you are or ever have been a government employee.
It opens up a whole load of questions.
How do they check you have move your livestock?
Do you need to keep records of field to field movements?
Are they going to check satellite data?
How long is deemed a ”rest”? 24hours? A week? A month? 2 months?
 
The problem with scientific evidence in farming, is that quite often is agenda based.
Farmers are seen as unqualified peasants and so their years of practice knowledge and experience in real world is ignored in favour of a officially qualified person , often doing research to prove a result they wish to see.
Data and info can be manipulated how they want. Real life results can not.

Example from a environmental side.
Early HLS i was having problems getting flower mixs to grow well. Did well enough to pass inspections, but thought could be better.
I did a couple of small blokes of my own outside the scheme my own way.
Worked great and inspector/ case manager was very impressed with them.
When I said it was my own method and asked if I could do it on the official HLS , o was told no, as its not best/proper way to do it as quantified by the experts...

You probably seen with many of my posts, I am deeply sceptical of defra/rpa.
To many times I have knocked back for wanting to do better than the official way.
Experts won't take note of farmers as if they do, it shows they not really experts and don't know their stuff.
So we end up with schemes that don't work great as made up by non farming folk who are trying to justify their job.
This is exactly what we are working to move away from - we're introducing much more flexibility into schemes (and less emphasis on inspections and penalties for mistakes or things not working out as planned for whatever reason) so that farmers can decide the best way to deliver the outcomes we want to see.

I do appreciate that seeing is believing and can see why you'd be sceptical based on your experience though - that seems fair enough to me.
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
@Janet Hughes Defra Still no news on how the outcomes are to be measured.
In respect of all grass farms, SOM figures not going to be collected by DEFRA according to my understanding of one of your previous posts despite these being the only data collected and that by farmers at their expense reducing the value of any payment and with no requirement that I can find to do anything with those result on farm
How will this scheme be justified to the taxpayer if there is no data collected?
This appears to be a very confused scheme and potential waste of public money designed to satisfy academics and advisors who have a view of how grassland should be managed but who have no idea how to measure the success of their theory .
Please try to convince me this is anything but a complete waste of time other than for those employed by DEFRA.
 

andybk

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Mendips Somerset
@Janet Hughes Defra Still no news on how the outcomes are to be measured.
In respect of all grass farms, SOM figures not going to be collected by DEFRA according to my understanding of one of your previous posts despite these being the only data collected and that by farmers at their expense reducing the value of any payment and with no requirement that I can find to do anything with those result on farm
How will this scheme be justified to the taxpayer if there is no data collected?
This appears to be a very confused scheme and potential waste of public money designed to satisfy academics and advisors who have a view of how grassland should be managed but who have no idea how to measure the success of their theory .
Please try to convince me this is anything but a complete waste of time other than for those employed by DEFRA.
thats why i asked for defra to fund the testing and keep the results , they then have data to put to whatever committee in future to show their method works , i dont see what we have to fear from collected data excepting the ones that damage soils
 

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
thats why i asked for defra to fund the testing and keep the results , they then have data to put to whatever committee in future to show their method works , i dont see what we have to fear from collected data excepting the ones that damage soils
Ploughs damage soils , apparently
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.8%
  • 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

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  • 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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