Sustainable Farming Incentive: how the scheme will work in 2022

Sustainable farming incentive details published today 2 December 2021

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steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
I don’t want to appear rude to Janet , but if they’ve been engaging with farmers, like they say they have, why are they making such a dogs dinner of things. It couldn’t be more wide of the mark if it tried.
Its offering a pittance and wont attract many farmers, and there’s been no answer to what are we to do with these OM test results, which will be massively varied across our glacial moraine anyway. We have everything from sand/ gravel to clay with fields .
I suspect that the issue here is that DEFRA are listening to so many competing voices, all with their own Agendas.

Charities and the big landed Estates will have a very different perspective to a Yeoman Tenant farmer on the N Shropshire Plain. The biggest factor is, "do they actually need to make a living off the land", and we know the answer to that, espcially with Charities....

Then you have the "experts", so many of them, so many with wonderful degrees, and so little experience of real life... I have met a few over the years doing research projects on the farm, some were really nice people, but they tended so often to have a preconceived idea that needed to be proven, as opposed to an investigation...

Had one lass doing a dissertion project here this summer. Her sensible approach to the possibility of getting a "negative" outcome from her investigation, was refreshing.
 
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Unyte Hemp-Jamie Bartley

Member
Arable Farmer
@Janet Hughes Defra thanks for taking the time to answer questions. Please can you clarify why Hemp is out of scope of the research being funded by Defra into farming resilience? Hemp is the only crop that achieves all the goals set for the research, while sequestering 20 tonnes per hectare of Carbon, increased biodiversity and a great late season source of pollen for bee populations. Increasing the following crop yields by 16-18%, removing persistent pesticides and increasing the soils attenuation capacity. BEIS are currently funding research into Hemp so it seems crazy that Defra would explicitly exclude it from scope? All the best, Jamie Bartley - Unyte Hemp - https://UnyteHemp.com/news
Hemp - The Story of the Solution (Video)
 

Unyte Hemp-Jamie Bartley

Member
Arable Farmer
@Janet Hughes Defra Thanks for taking the time to answer questions. Please can you clarify why Hemp is specifically excluded from research being funded buy Defra? It is the only crop that can achieve the requirements of the farming resilience, while sequestering 20 tonnes of Carbon per hectare. It also provides a late season source of pollen for bee populations, increased biodiversity, increases the following crop yield by 16-18%, along with the soils attenuation capacity and removes persistent pesticides. It seems crazy that Defra explicitly exclude Hemp from their funded research, yet BEIS are happy to fund Hemp research Hemp-30
All the best,
Jamie Bartley
Unyte Hemp
Hemp - The Story of the Solution (Video)
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
@Janet Hughes Defra thanks for taking the time to answer questions. Please can you clarify why Hemp is out of scope of the research being funded by Defra into farming resilience? Hemp is the only crop that achieves all the goals set for the research, while sequestering 20 tonnes per hectare of Carbon, increased biodiversity and a great late season source of pollen for bee populations. Increasing the following crop yields by 16-18%, removing persistent pesticides and increasing the soils attenuation capacity. BEIS are currently funding research into Hemp so it seems crazy that Defra would explicitly exclude it from scope? All the best, Jamie Bartley - Unyte Hemp - https://UnyteHemp.com/news
Hemp - The Story of the Solution (Video)

Interesting, somewhere there is a thread I started on using miscanthus (or any other crop) for water retention purposes on land adjacent to water courses. Could hemp do the same, or is it an annual, so not much use over winter?
 
IF I do go for the scheme and the payment is made to me then I will make it clear to my vet that the £522 is for the review split 50/50 between him and me. Would that be ok Janet Hughes Defra?
The payment will go to the farmer, but it's intended to cover the costs of the vet's time and the diagnostic tests for the diseases we want to cover and we've based it on the likely cost of those things
 
@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?
Normally, we’d expect soil organic matter test to be done in a laboratory, but it could be done on the farm if you have the equipment and know how to do it.
 

Velcro Gloves

Member
Livestock Farmer
The payment will go to the farmer, but it's intended to cover the costs of the vet's time and the diagnostic tests for the diseases we want to cover and we've based it on the likely cost of those things
We've been doing the health plan/accredited herd with our Devon's for a while now and you will soon rattle through £522 @Sprog, not to mention the blood testing and tissue tags.
 
A lot more stewardship agreements in the last year or 2, mine included. It does seem logical that there isn't enough of the 2.3B budget left for sfi whilst paying 95% of bps this year and 75% next?
Perhaps by 2025 we will see £100/acre for more ambition as its called?
Yes, that's correct, the £2.4bn budget pays for both direct payments and schemes. All the money coming out of BPS will go into schemes. As we reduce BPS, we will introduce more levels of ambition and a wider range of standards into SFI. In 2022, the overall payments available under SFI may look limited – because only a small number of standards are available. As the scheme expands, farmers will be able to adopt more standards, produce more environmental benefits, and earn more money from the scheme. We'll also then start rolling out the Local Nature Recovery scheme (the successor to countryside stewardship) which will have additional ways for farmers to earn money, on top of SFI. So this is just the first of many steps.
 
The payment will go to the farmer, but it's intended to cover the costs of the vet's time and the diagnostic tests for the diseases we want to cover and we've based it on the likely cost of those things
I think Sprog was hoping that half the cost would cover the vets time and laboratory costs and the other half would be as at least a part replacement for some of the lost SFP and his own time and experience.
In reality the vets will likely find a way to charge £522 for their basket of services ….
 
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@Janet Hughes Defra Thanks for your presence answering questions 👍🏻

I’m confused ( not difficult ) about claiming Arable SFI on parcels claiming CS

If I have a parcel in Mid tier CS with an AB9 plot for example, can I claim SFI soil standard on that parcel also as there is no double funding??
Would my SW6 option taking up 15% of my total area then count against me claiming the soil standards as I’m being double funded or only on the parcels that contain the SW6 option would be ineligible ??
Could I then amend my SFI application every year to omit the parcels with SW6??
You can enter as many or as few parcels as you like into SFI. If you have a CS option on part of a parcel, you can have SFI on the other part of the parcel, as long as we're not paying you for the same action twice, and that the actions are compatible. We'll publish guidance covering all CS options and SFI so you can have a clear view of what's ok and not ok.
 

Huno

Member
Arable Farmer
Morning all

Today we'll be publishing some information about how the sustainable farming incentive will work when we start rolling it out from next year in England.

I'll post the links here as soon as they're online, and will be here on this thread over the next few days to answer your questions about it.

Update:

Here is a link to our programme blog, with links to the documents we've published today and an explanation of what we're doing and why: https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2021/12/02/sfi-standards/

Also:

Here is a direct link to a document setting out how the sustainable farming incentive will work from 2022: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ng-incentive-how-the-scheme-will-work-in-2022

Here is a link to a speech George Eustice, Secretary of State, made this morning: https://www.gov.uk/government/speec...tary-speech-at-cla-conference-2-december-2021

And here is a link to a statement in Parliament about progress in delivering our new schemes:
This thread is managed by Janet Hughes employee at DEFRA who feeds her the juicy bit to reply too.. quite rightly she monitors this forum to warn government as to the risk of a "tractor rally" on one of the English motorways which might or might not include glue on hands or old silage pit tyres!! In GOV.UK.. circles we call this J2 int flow.... I think the GOV is actually listening but so too is GCHQ!! Have fun ranting but its all a numbers game.. 1 voice is lost on TrollNet....
Keep up the good work DEFRA it must be a horrible job keeping everyone happy at the mo.😃
 
Thanks for the reply Janet, that's good to hear.
As a couple of others have rightly asked, how do we do it? I've just looked on the RPI part of .gov, and the ELM section just shows our pilot SFI agreement, no way of changing / amending / adding. Do we have to ring the RPA?
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.
 

Huno

Member
Arable Farmer
Good question T acres... I have the same decision making problem but the best plan is to send your query straight to NE and the RPA as they will answer this conudrum in 2024!!
 
Quite a few lowland Grazing farms have small fields like you. The scheme wording disadvantages these badly as they need more 'parcels' sampled per farm Ha than an Anglian arable outfit with big open parcels.

My smallest parcel is 1.5 Ha. I have an arable neighbour whose smallest parcel is 12 Ha and averages way bigger.

We both get the same rate per Ha to cover testing.

Unfair.
We won't require you to do the tests on a per parcel basis - we'll issue guidance on this before the scheme starts, and it will explain how to ensure a good spread of testing across all the land entered into the scheme.
 

Velcro Gloves

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yes, that's correct, the £2.4bn budget pays for both direct payments and schemes. All the money coming out of BPS will go into schemes. As we reduce BPS, we will introduce more levels of ambition and a wider range of standards into SFI. In 2022, the overall payments available under SFI may look limited – because only a small number of standards are available. As the scheme expands, farmers will be able to adopt more standards, produce more environmental benefits, and earn more money from the scheme. We'll also then start rolling out the Local Nature Recovery scheme (the successor to countryside stewardship) which will have additional ways for farmers to earn money, on top of SFI. So this is just the first of many steps.
@Janet Hughes Defra that is encouraging to hear, do we know if we will HAVE to collaborate with other land managers to enter a local nature recovery scheme?
Also can you please put something like a cap in place to stop the massive estates swallowing all the cash? If I farmed 1000 acres how I farm 200 acres then I wouldn't need any subsidies.
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 43.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.6%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

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

  • 1,286
  • 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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