Cross Compliance and EFAs

[fendtfan]

Copied and pasted from the BPS 2018 guidance online:
"The definition of the EFA buffer strips option is extended to include field margins as well as buffer strips. In addition to buffer strips adjacent or parallel with a water course, you can also claim field margins towards your EFA. The minimum width of 1 metre remains. The EFA value of field margins will be the same as EFA buffer strips - every metre in length equals 9 square metres of area for EFA."

How do you interpret the above. I and many others were told at a Farm Business Update meeting ( Lavenham Suffolk) that we could count field margins ie the cross compliance 1m margin as EFA. I have just had a tally up of those margins on my 200 hectare holding been very conservative and excluded roadside and gardenside margins and come up with 14312 meters. At 1 meter wide this equates to 1.4312 ha multiply that by 9 as suggested and you come up with 12.88 hectares more than enough to satisfy my EFA 5% commitment.

 

[haymaker80]

Copied and pasted from the BPS 2018 guidance online:
"The definition of the EFA buffer strips option is extended to include field margins as well as buffer strips. In addition to buffer strips adjacent or parallel with a water course, you can also claim field margins towards your EFA. The minimum width of 1 metre remains. The EFA value of field margins will be the same as EFA buffer strips - every metre in length equals 9 square metres of area for EFA."

How do you interpret the above. I and many others were told at a Farm Business Update meeting ( Lavenham Suffolk) that we could count field margins ie the cross compliance 1m margin as EFA. I have just had a tally up of those margins on my 200 hectare holding been very conservative and excluded roadside and gardenside margins and come up with 14312 meters. At 1 meter wide this equates to 1.4312 ha multiply that by 9 as suggested and you come up with 12.88 hectares more than enough to satisfy my EFA 5% commitment.

Went to an NFU meeting last week and that's how I understood it too, that you can use the 1m margin for efa. Speaker said to beware if you have hedges in environmental scheme on 2 or 3 year cutting that the extra growth on hedges may encroach on the 1m margin, making them ineligible. Can also use hedges for efa. Hedges that the rpa believe are eligile for greening are supposed to be on the bps maps soon

 

[Ramrod]

Why exclude road and garden side?

If it's 1m wide it counts!

 

[fendtfan]

Why exclude road and garden side?

If it's 1m wide it counts!

You are right ramrod and I got confirmation of this from Farm Advisory Service this morning. I do not need all my cross compliance margins to count towards my efa so why take the chance on roadside or garden margins. This looks like a major ****up by the RPA counting this at a multiple of nine it does nothing to help the enviroment.

 

[Adeptandy]

You are right ramrod and I got confirmation of this from Farm Advisory Service this morning. I do not need all my cross compliance margins to count towards my efa so why take the chance on roadside or garden margins. This looks like a major ****up by the RPA counting this at a multiple of nine it does nothing to help the enviroment.

Shhhh, they might realise

 

[yellow belly]

this may be the case if hedge rows show up on the rlr system if it is not on their system an rle1 is needed
I have no field that has the correct hedge information on the field mapping system for the rlr

 

[fendtfan]

It does not need a hedge. any defined field boundary requiring the 1m cross compliance margin can be used.

 

[yellow belly]

It does not need a hedge. any defined field boundary requiring the 1m cross compliance margin can be used.

But where the hedg overhangs the 1 m the Rpa inspector could disallow the buffer most fields here have hedges round them which keep growing

 

[dirty harry]

Can you still claim a hedge at 9m aswell if next to a 1m buffer or is it one or the other?

 

[yellow belly]

Can you still claim a hedge at 9m aswell if next to a 1m buffer or is it one or the other?

provided canopy of the hedge to crop distance is more than a metre

hedge must be less than 3 m from the middle there is a danger we will be back to flailing hedges back

 

[beefandsleep]

So if you have an inspection in spring or early summer you may pass, but in Autumn you may fail due to new hedge growth encroaching onto margins? What a farce.

 

[dirty harry]

So potentially/ essentially you can claim a hedge & the one metre margin = 18m2 ? Sounds to good...?

 

[Hindsight]

So potentially/ essentially you can claim a hedge & the one metre margin = 18m2 ? Sounds to good...?

Not to good. Its in the guidance book. Around page 47 or so.

 

[yellow belly]

So potentially/ essentially you can claim a hedge & the one metre margin = 18m2 ? Sounds to good...?

That is the case as long as they have designated your hedge as a hedge

We have some that are pre enclosure hedges that are not showing on their system every map since the mid 18th century
And they have had 3 maps from us in the last 30 years iMacs and s stewardship maps

When we get to paying for public goods in 2020s these valuable wildlife assets should be paid for at a proper economic rate
Hedges cost £30 an acre in lost output higher operating costs where fields average under 20 acres compared to 100 acres or more

 

[Try to succeed]

Just sat down to make a start on this years application and surprise surprise, every hedge on the whole farm is wrong. I have hedges fragmented up into 2-7m lengths, bare ground mapped as hedges, perfect hedges not considered to be hedges, perfectly good hedges with a 'no EFA' next to them. And to add to that every bl**dy mapping change I submitted last year has been ignored and their mistakes reapplied to the whole application. I have a feeling when they get the millions of RLE1 forms re hedges, they won't be correcting them any time soon; most will probably end up 'lost'.

 

[Hindsight]

Just sat down to make a start on this years application and surprise surprise, every hedge on the whole farm is wrong. I have hedges fragmented up into 2-7m lengths, bare ground mapped as hedges, perfect hedges not considered to be hedges, perfectly good hedges with a 'no EFA' next to them. And to add to that every bl**dy mapping change I submitted last year has been ignored and their mistakes reapplied to the whole application. I have a feeling when they get the millions of RLE1 forms re hedges, they won't be correcting them any time soon; most will probably end up 'lost'.

Snap. Maybe everyone affected like this should drop a little note to the Defra Minister - think the two supposedly in charge are fellas by name of Gove and Eustace with a copy to the chief executive (sic!) of RPA and the local MP. Just a thought.

 

[dirty harry]

It’s a farce !
Just started looking at mine today and amongst numerous other things they’ve made a new field for my home made rook ladder trap that’s 10ftx10ft, & a new field for the cattle pen (80x20ft) that’s apparently surrounded by hedges not crash barriers....!!
Biggest head scratcher is how they’ve merged 5 fields (been there forever) into one “super field” now?
Very frustrating!!