Can't agree with that. Are you expecting farmers to swallow rises in every single cost for 2 or 3 years and only then can we expect better prices?
Holy cow batman!
Janet Hughes DEFRA Missing in action?
- Thread starter topground
- Start date
Holy cow batman!
- Location
- Essex
Ok so you think farming doesn't need to be profitable, relying on taxpayer subsidies instead.
You still haven't said why you think elms or the SFI is criminal.
You still haven't said why you think elms or the SFI is criminal.
Ceri
Member
No Robin I'm thinking bps money is the best thing at the moment to get us through current ag inflation until things settle down, certainly not elms payments on offer.......?
Ceri
Member
Because it's going to take land that produces food out of production can I be anymore clearer like........ Woukd it help if I put it in capitals..?
- Location
- Devon
I would say that it can't incentivise sustainable farming if it doesn't connect payments to production in some form.
SFI could / should tip the balance in favour of quality rather than quantity.
And it is borderline criminal the way that those least able to afford the energy/food price rises due to all the extra environmental costs and levies which will go to rich charities and pet projects of the wealthy to enhance their lives rather than have any net benefit to society.
- Location
- Essex
Ok but subsidising production has got us into the state we are in, not a good one. Why does food have to be so cheap that producers rely on benefits and wages are so low that only immigrants will do the work?
Rich charities and pet projects? I thought elms and the SFI was aimed at farmer's or have I missed something?
- Location
- Essex
Explain?
Ceri
Member
As ever, nailed it on the head, @Jackov Altraids ....
Playing Devils Advocate here, HVF?
SFI was supposed to be aimed at Farmers, the other 2 tiers of ELMS as originally dreamed up, less so. As I know, that you know
I think that there are a few folks on here in a bit of a sticky situation.
You have - quite rightly - spent the last two years saying what ELMS shouldn't look like. They have listened. Landscape Recovery has gone. The need to be collaborating with neighbours in Local Nature Recovery has gone. Much of the bias towards one farming system over another has gone, and what remains will go.
No need to bellyache anymore. You need to move on. Stop saying what it shouldn't look like, and start saying what it should look like.
You have - quite rightly - spent the last two years saying what ELMS shouldn't look like. They have listened. Landscape Recovery has gone. The need to be collaborating with neighbours in Local Nature Recovery has gone. Much of the bias towards one farming system over another has gone, and what remains will go.
No need to bellyache anymore. You need to move on. Stop saying what it shouldn't look like, and start saying what it should look like.
- Location
- Essex
Of course I am playing devil's advocate to a degree, but I also fear that we won't have a healthy food and farming economy unless the economics of it work for the whole supply chain right the way from the producer to the consumer, without the need for subsidies.Playing Devils Advocate here, HVF?
SFI was supposed to be aimed at Farmers, the other 2 tiers of ELMS as originally dreamed up, less so. As I know, that you know
As for whether the government offering financial incentives to rich landowners is criminal or not, I suppose it depends if you are a have or have not and what the effect of those incentives are...
What SFI should look like...?
CS lite for the enviro elements.
Big emphasis on water protection, so really good payments on perm or semi-perm buffer zones, maybe even encompassing whole field areas near main water courses, extraction sites? ST Water schemes led the way, but the money seems to be getting tight...
Still like the PP encouragement approach you favoured, but not sure that it will run. Possibly LFA support on PP would help, and say a base area PP payment for the lowlands.
Deffo support for small abattoirs, which need not be financial... Just tweak legislation, or maybe some help with Inspection costs, which seem to be the killer fro so many. Maybe some Grants to upgrade facilities a bit... new cold stores and the like
Arable can suck some payments from the CS lite.
I don't think the base payment for all that some advocate, will run politically.
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And theirin lies the real nub of the problem.
How to deal with (temper) the massively powerful, final part of the supply chain?
Ceri
Member
I told them it should be modelled on the old HLS. Individual parcels could be put into one's desired option to suit and the more prescriptive the greater the payments. Our more marginal land was put into options that meant we could not farm it as intensively with fert, lime & kept livestock off them during the winter etc etc. We then ploughed on with our better land & cropped it etc but Oviously this didn't attract as good a payment. We then had capital grants to fence off the river, plant hedges restore hedges all pointed for the benifit for stock for shelter & def improved water quality & habitat for nesting birds, wildlife etc etc.
We built our farming system round HLS in my opinion a great great SIMPLE scheme and we will really miss it.
Maybe it's to simplistic but I would have been happy to scrap bps & just doubled the payments on the HLS. @Janet Hughes Defra
Well done TFF team for lobbying @Janet Hughes Defra for the last 6 months on this thread but she ignored us until Barclay and Canzini entered the inner circle.. see page 1 and 2 of the sunday times today..
Common sense might still happen
Common sense might still happen
Attachments
- Location
- Essex
You hit the nail on the head there. The failing of successive governments to rein in the strangulating power of the corporate food system at the expense of producer, consumer and taxpayer alike. (Some of them even offshore their profits while staff rely on working family tax credits).
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Small point of order:
The need to collaborate was in LR not in LNR. LNR schemes have no lower size limit (that I am aware of yet).
LNR will, however, be dependent on what each local areas' "Local nature recovery plan" ends up saying as applications must contribute to delivering that plan. Most of these have not yet been written and many that are being written have little or no farmer input, often being led by NGOs. You can guess what they are likely to include....