We farmers are true optomists but equally if you plan for the worst you can hope for the best? Trust your instinct and if it looks too good to be true it usually is...
AHL2 - Winter Bird Food
- Thread starter Stephensonlouis
- Start date
gone up the hill
Member
- Location
- Devon
Yes i agree, the key is finding the sweet spot between producing as much as you can whilst claiming as much SFI as you can.
That way if they change the rules and make SFI unworkable at least you are still have something to sell.
If they change the SFI rules at any point after an agreement has been agreed they should allow the farmer to withdraw from that option/ SFI without any penalty!
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
If so I’ll drive an armoured bulldozer through Parliament…
Scrambler
Member
- Location
- Leicestershire
I’ve been growing winter bird feed under CS for the last 5 years. Defra should have made it clear from the beginning that under SFI, just like CS, it is to be planted in May/June and left in place until the following Feb/March.
They monitor this forum so have been well aware that some farmers are understandably looking for loopholes to allow maximum profit.
What a mess.
They monitor this forum so have been well aware that some farmers are understandably looking for loopholes to allow maximum profit.
What a mess.
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
Some farmers trying to maximise profit? Is that not ultimately the aim of anyone in business, else it’s not really a business but a hobby!!
Mixedupfarmer
Member
- Location
- Norfolk
If it provides more winter bird food, and enables more farms on better / dearer land to consider it, surely it is a win - win for all?
And when you fill in your annual claim each year by May stating where your CS/SFI option and field and amount in each parcel is they can monitor it with sat imagery and ensure that no fraud is happening or you can not claim and grow food instead that year! Simple system that prevented fraud..
Interpretation of the AIMS of SFI seems to be playing very hard and loose and deserves immediate scrutiny.Indeed this is now happening within DEFRA? Prehaps DEFRA protocol will notify the Serious Fraud Office to keep an eye on their woolly policy?
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Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
You are conflating two entirely separate issues Hun and your post must be corrected. You refer to fraud in that a claimant might not have the area of CS/SFI option - that indeed would be fraud. But the issue at hand subject of recent posts is not that, not that at all, but the management of an option to achieve the 'aims' of an option as laid out in the SFI Guidance (not CS guidance which is more prescriptive). The point is the NFU briefing note states categorically for option AHL1 and AHL2 that to deliver the aims the method some claimants have outlined on various TFF threads as their intended approach is incorrect and will fail.
As the NFU I understand is taken to represent the farming industry I think it reasonable to ask Defra to clarify if this NFU briefing does speak for Defra and will it be or is it based on the intended instructions issued to the RPA Inspectorate. It is imperative as if the case a number of SFI agreement holders may need to reconsider their intentions and thus the SFI agreement in place.
Ok prehaps the NFU are being fraudulant by altering and publishing a new set of scheme rules or are they just leaking how SFI/CS 24 rules will be worded? I think the latter and look forward to the new scheme details being published by DEFRA sooner rather than later even if we cant join until the "summer" or later? If CS and SFI are being combined then the wording for similar options will have to be aligned surely? Cover crop in both schemes is the same so aims,outputs, etc will have to be the same??
I have added to my post as requested!
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Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Thank you. You may be correct in you assumption. We (I) do not know. But it should be made clear soon to those existing agreement holders Defra's intentions with regard to the inspection process and if as per the NFU briefing will this be applied to all agreement holders, ie retrospectively. I asked in a post last Autumn in the thread with Janet Hughes, in that period when she engaged in answering questions, if there would be sight of the RPA Inspectorate inspection guidelines, so claimants and advisers could consider how intended management of actions would be inspected. I cannot recall now the reply and am not going to trawl back through the thread to find out.
- Location
- Northumberland
No need to trawl back. If there'd been any hint of the inspector guidance we wouldn't be having this debate.
More to life
Member
- Location
- Somerset
Is westerwold ryegrass allowed in AHL2 it would seed in year 1 give good ground cover it's cheap and would provide excellent spring grazing ?
- Location
- Northumberland
Are you brave enough to let it seed? Always said to be a no no.
More to life
Member
- Location
- Somerset
That's why i'm asking when grown as a forage crop a heavy dose of slurry will kill it. Doesn't seem to stick much hardship.
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
I Am sure that defra will clarify the rules on bird food and it will have to be more on the lines of stewardship Ab 9
2024/2025 defra draft proposals
and not allowed between an summer harvested crop and a spring crop
they should have set this out in the first place
2024/2025 defra draft proposals
and not allowed between an summer harvested crop and a spring crop
they should have set this out in the first place
fieldfarmer
Member
Attachments
Scrambler
Member
- Location
- Leicestershire
Because the money offered for this SFI option is the same as the CS option. They can’t allow it to be more profitable in SFI than CS.
Also it would favour the milder parts of England.
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
Depends too much on where in the country,weather and soil type to work
i have had 12 years in stewardship with winter bird food planting after mid June does not work most years
defra loosened up the rules last year and then increased the rate this year
no one would have taken up the option before the rate went to over 800
defra and the farming industry would have lost billions from the budget over the next few years if the treasury had clawed back the likely underspend
£250 or more for wheat for a year would have cost the industry a massively reduced budget
all chancellers whatever party would have spent the money somewere else
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
They will also limit the area in one parcel/field to 5 ha
there are other actions that earn more money in gross margin and less problems
there are other actions that earn more money in gross margin and less problems