Watercourses and hedgerows

delilah · Dec 6, 2021

Slightly disappointed at the lack of threads on ELMS, thought I would start one.

A few recent comments on here have suggested that watercourses and hedgerows are in the sights of lobby groups for needing mandatory protection.

Taking it as a given that our national bodies get a line drawn in the sand such that this cannot happen without suitable financial compensation, how much (per 100 metres) do folks feel they need to be paid via ELMS, for:
a) A 10 metre margin alongside watercourses (state whether arable or grassland).
b) Hedgerow management complete with a 1m margin from the base.

Your figures can then assist @Janet Hughes Defra in ensuring sufficient ELMS money is ring-fenced for these two measures.

Wombat · Dec 6, 2021

The thing to first recongnise for watercourses they are there for a reason and that’s to move water, letting them go to rack and ruin for rotation ditch management just isn’t possible for some of us with through ditches that drain large areas with little natural fall.

we have 6m margins all done voluntarily but covered by bps (I think 10 is a little big as 6m meets most lerap requirements) and think they are great the issues become sometimes you need to use them to get across or like in 2019 put straw on it just to get it off the field as it’s so bloody wet and then go get it later on a frost and this is where there needs to be a bit of flexibility, could you see where we put straw on one margin by the following spring no but they would have crapped their pants of it had been a funded margin.

yellow belly · Dec 6, 2021

A : minimum 550 per ha

Mixedupfarmer · Dec 6, 2021

delilah said:
Slightly disappointed at the lack of threads on ELMS, thought I would start one.

A few recent comments on here have suggested that watercourses and hedgerows are in the sights of lobby groups for needing mandatory protection.

Taking it as a given that our national bodies get a line drawn in the sand such that this cannot happen without suitable financial compensation, how much (per 100 metres) do folks feel they need to be paid via ELMS, for:
a) A 10 metre margin alongside watercourses (state whether arable or grassland).
b) Hedgerow management complete with a 1m margin from the base.

Your figures can then assist @Janet Hughes Defra in ensuring sufficient ELMS money is ring-fenced for these two measures.

£1000/ha arable £800 grass. Would be best money spent for environment

delilah · Dec 7, 2021

Wombat said:
we have 6m margins all done voluntarily but covered by bps (I think 10 is a little big as 6m meets most lerap requirements)

I've put it at 10m because of something @steveR put on here a while ago, saying that Severn Trent are now wanting 10m, think i've got that right ?

Billboy1 · Dec 7, 2021

Mixedupfarmer said:
£1000/ha arable £800 grass. Would be best money spent for environment

spot on that ! with the proviso we are allowed to clean ditches every 5 years . then i would gladly sign up

Mixedupfarmer · Dec 7, 2021

Billboy1 said:
spot on that ! with the proviso we are allowed to clean ditches every 5 years . then i would gladly sign up

They need to pay that sort of money to get most farms on board, would be better than chucking £25K at big farms to buy another 6m direct drill.

Wombat · Dec 7, 2021

delilah said:
I've put it at 10m because of something @steveR put on here a while ago, saying that Severn Trent are now wanting 10m, think i've got that right ?

Issue is we have some small fields with ditches on 3 sides and 10m becomes a bit of a pain

Wombat · Dec 7, 2021

Billboy1 said:
spot on that ! with the proviso we are allowed to clean ditches every 5 years . then i would gladly sign up

Every 5 years no thanks, one in 2 maybe. Not fair on higher neighbours for that sparse cleaning. The number for margins sounds spot on though

Mixedupfarmer · Dec 7, 2021

Wombat said:
Issue is we have some small fields with ditches on 3 sides and 10m becomes a bit of a pain

Same here, but at £1000/ha it would be worth it, not the derisory payment levels which have been offered in the past / currently

Billboy1 · Dec 7, 2021

I agree throwing money at the machinery manufacturers isn’t the way either

Will Blackburn · Dec 7, 2021

Mixedupfarmer said:
£1000/ha arable £800 grass. Would be best money spent for environment

Just to add

£1000/ha arable £800 grass, and £2000 dairy grass.

Otherwise you just don't attract any interest from the latter sector.

delilah · Dec 7, 2021

Wombat said:
Issue is we have some small fields with ditches on 3 sides and 10m becomes a bit of a pain

Think we need @steveR to comment on how the Severn Trent scheme caters for that.

steveR · Dec 7, 2021

delilah said:
Think we need @steveR to comment on how the Severn Trent scheme caters for that.

I think the best response I can give, is that I have not taken up the Severn Trent STEPS offerings for buffer strips against watercourses as the £££ were not sufficient to tempt me... They have effectively dropped several options, but I was surprised they were not keener on water protection options.

The old "diffuse pollution" seems to be the area most of interest now, but the funding has I suspect, been reduced. It did seem a bit nebulous in "it's ambitions" (to quote Janet!) but there is/was some good sensible Options that I hoped would arrive in SFI.

I have said repeatedly, that the simplicity of STEPS and similiar Water Company schemes, was the real plus point, and should be looked at by DEFRA. No Agents needed, just a good local Advisor who would help if needed to pull a scheme together, and knew the local area and what could be achieved.

My Advisor is great and we work well together, I pull the scheme together to suit me and the farm, and get her to proof read and make suggestions to improve the application. Used to be like that with Stewardship 25 years ago....

neilo · Dec 7, 2021

Will Blackburn said:
Just to add

£1000/ha arable £800 grass, and £2000 dairy grass.

Otherwise you just don't attract any interest from the latter sector.

In that case, can sheep farmers get £3000/ha...

You guys are dreaming. You aren't going to be offered anything like that to provide margins on what is effectively your least productive ground anyway. and that you can't legally use most pesticides or fertiliser anyway.

If DEFRA look back on here they will also find posts from people that put in such margins for HLS, then kept them on without payment after their schemes finished.

wanton dwarf · Dec 7, 2021

neilo said:
You guys are dreaming. You aren't going to be offered anything like that to provide margins on what is effectively your least productive ground anyway. and that you can't legally use most pesticides or fertiliser anyway.

You can use fertiliser and pesticides next to ditches which have no water running. Which most of ours do during spring, summer and autumn. Not all of our hedges have ditches either.

You can also pipe running ditches - which we have done.

I've never had margins, never had HLS, infact never had any environmental payments on crop land.

Will Blackburn · Dec 7, 2021

neilo said:
In that case, can sheep farmers get £3000/ha...

You guys are dreaming. You aren't going to be offered anything like that to provide margins on what is effectively your least productive ground anyway. and that you can't legally use most pesticides or fertiliser anyway.

If DEFRA look back on here they will also find posts from people that put in such margins for HLS, then kept them on without payment after their schemes finished.

I know, but there should be no surprises when dairy lads don't sign up, or anyone else for that matter.

teslacoils · Dec 7, 2021

delilah said:
I've put it at 10m because of something @steveR put on here a while ago, saying that Severn Trent are now wanting 10m, think i've got that right ?

I'm sure they do.

That's a company that discharged untreated sewage to water courses for over 500,000 hours in 2020.

I'm not sure they are best qualified to tell folk how to protect watercourses are they.....

Henarar · Dec 7, 2021

delilah said:
Slightly disappointed at the lack of threads on ELMS, thought I would start one.

A few recent comments on here have suggested that watercourses and hedgerows are in the sights of lobby groups for needing mandatory protection.

Taking it as a given that our national bodies get a line drawn in the sand such that this cannot happen without suitable financial compensation, how much (per 100 metres) do folks feel they need to be paid via ELMS, for:
a) A 10 metre margin alongside watercourses (state whether arable or grassland).
b) Hedgerow management complete with a 1m margin from the base.

Your figures can then assist @Janet Hughes Defra in ensuring sufficient ELMS money is ring-fenced for these two measures.

What are you calling a watercourse ?
What is required for this hedgerow management of which you speak?
What can't you do in the margins for both ?
Thats what I would want to know

delilah · Dec 7, 2021

Henarar said:
What are you calling a watercourse ?
What is required for this hedgerow management of which you speak?
What can't you do in the margins for both ?
Thats what I would want to know

I guess that's for you to suggest. The reason for the OP, as said, is that these two features of our farms are in the sights of lobby groups. Either we ignore that, and hope that it will go away, or we make sure that the SFI meets our needs with regards adequate payments.

Watercourses and hedgerows

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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