Defra now looking at capping SFI

[Levelsman]

I think it more to do with the potential public outcry of being paid to not produce food. Shame it's not worth growing at the current prices. What are we Wheat £167/t???

But the poor little birdies...what are they all going to eat?

Grand old Duke of York comes to mind!

 

[Chris W]

The irony is that if they hard cap SFI (ie no one can claim more than £X) they'll have the NT & RSPB et al screaming blue murder, so every cloud has a silver lining!

I've been wondering a while how the sums added up. I calculated I could more than double my BPS by stopping all food production on my farm and just putting the lot into various SFI options. If I can do that so can everyone else. So given we all got £90/acre before, there's not enough money for us all to get double. The sums only add up if loads of people claim nothing or significantly less than they used to, or the payments are capped in some way.

It sounds like the penny is dropping, and the new message will be - keep working peasants, we need the food so don't think you can just sit back and collect the eco-payments and do nothing. My guess is they will quite rapidly cap SFI payments at a level of £X per acre farmed, where X is less than the old BPS rate. This allows the big boys to claim more than the little ones, so they don't cut up rough, but caps the budget at less than BPS was.

Your not trying hard enough … I can get double BPS by only removing 1/6th of land from production.

 

[Right-arm fast]

This is what caught my eye:

Mark Spencer's words copied from the article:

"If people start to take the mickey, then we will have to take action to stop that from happening, and there is some active consideration as to whether we limit the amount of a holding that you can put into that scheme for certain actions, to stop that from happening."

Where does it say in the rules that you can't put your whole holding in and stop growing crops, and how is putting large areas in to help the environment taking the mickey? After all that's what they are paying for in the first instance as this is what they want.

 

[topground]

This is what caught my eye:

Mark Spencer's words copied from the article:

"If people start to take the mickey, then we will have to take action to stop that from happening, and there is some active consideration as to whether we limit the amount of a holding that you can put into that scheme for certain actions, to stop that from happening."

Where does it say in the rules that you can't put your whole holding in and stop growing crops, and how is putting large areas in to help the environment taking the mickey? After all that's what they are paying for in the first instance as this is what they want.

DEFRA has stated that they want 70% of land in their schemes . It appears that Spencer hasn’t read his brief, They can’t achieve that and Janet Hughes won’t get her damehood if her boss doesn’t want whole farms entering into the scheme.
Clearly the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Lions led by Donkeys comes to mind. The Lions being food producers.

 

[willyorkshire]

This is what caught my eye:

Mark Spencer's words copied from the article:

"If people start to take the mickey, then we will have to take action to stop that from happening, and there is some active consideration as to whether we limit the amount of a holding that you can put into that scheme for certain actions, to stop that from happening."

Where does it say in the rules that you can't put your whole holding in and stop growing crops, and how is putting large areas in to help the environment taking the mickey? After all that's what they are paying for in the first instance as this is what they want.

If the scheme is being interpreted incorrectly, who's fault is that? This piecemeal release of bits and bobs, then having to pay more to further entice entry absolutely stinks of gross incompetence. Nothing new from this Govt!

 

[ajd132]

DEFRA has stated that they want 70% of land in their schemes . It appears that Spencer hasn’t read his brief, They can’t achieve that and Janet Hughes won’t get her damehood if her boss doesn’t want whole farms entering into the scheme.
Clearly the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Lions led by Donkeys comes to mind. The Lions being food producers.

70% of land in a scheme doesn’t mean 70% of land not growing a crop……
I’ve out the whole area I cover into the ‘scheme’ and havnt altered my growing area at all.

 

[AndrewM]

i see the question was asked by the managing director of a firm of Agri-Business Consultants, guess they are worried that if all their big clients plant all their estates out to wild flowers that there wont be much need for consultants!

 

[Hampton]

I seem to remember people saying
“Mark Spencer’s a good bloke…farmer’s son, he’ll be a good minister!”

 

[warksfarmer]

I'm not so sure. I think anyone with an accepted SFI agreement will be sitting pretty. If a cap comes in it'll be for new applications one suspects. Retrospective reductions in payments for extant agreements would leave open them to legal action. At the very least if there were retrospective reduced payments then the claimants would be able to leave the SFI as the terms had changed. No one is going to be forced to plant hundreds of acres of bird food but only get paid a fraction of what they signed up to.

I've said on here already that this looked like far too generous a scheme, and people should fill their boots while it lasted. Looks like it may not last even until the first schemes start!

Do you really trust them? ..........

 

[Clive]

I think it more to do with the potential public outcry of being paid to not produce food. Shame it's not worth growing at the current prices. What are we Wheat £167/t???

because the public were all just fine with wealthy landowners being paid to just own some land ?

 

[Steevo]

From the article above;-

Mr Spencer said it was also dependent on farmers to get the right balance, adding: “If people do start to take the mickey, we will have to take action to stop that from happening.”

WTF does taking the mickey mean? It's their game and their rules. What a carry on.

This was the exact same quote that stood out to me....

"Mr Spencer said it was farmers’ responsibility to get the right balance"

I haven't a clue how they can suggest that it's farmers responsibility! Food production isn't the farmer's responsibility at all.

Farmers respondiblity is to their own businesses, employees and families.

Governments don't seem to understand that THEY hold the power, THEY set the motivation and FARMERS are only responding to the signals that are being sent out.

 

[Clive]

Grossly unfair to change agreements already made.
It would be equally grossly unfair to not give access to the same agreement for anyone else.

it's called a "contract" and it can not be changed

load of hot air being talked about stuff that simply won't (in fact can't legally) happen

 

[topground]

70% of land in a scheme doesn’t mean 70% of land not growing a crop……
I’ve out the whole area I cover into the ‘scheme’ and havnt altered my growing area at all.

I doubt you grow wild flowers as a crop. Spencer is not clear what he means but it is DEFRAs scheme, perhaps he should be clear about what amounts to taking the mickey but since there is little in SFI that is transparent with no measurable outcomes they will continue to make it up as they go along to the detriment of food producers.

 

[Clive]

Do you really trust them? ..........

did they (have) to stick to the contracted FIT rates for solar or rhi despite them looking VERY generous in subsequesnt years ....... of course they are because they are "contracts"

 

[ajd132]

I doubt you grow wild flowers as a crop. Spencer is not clear what he means but it is DEFRAs scheme, perhaps he should be clear about what amounts to taking the mickey but since there is little in SFI that is transparent with no measurable outcomes they will continue to make it up as they go along to the detriment of food producers.

I grow combineable crops, and complete actions that I can do in and around those crops. Therefore I am in the scheme.
SFI isn’t just wild flowers.

 

[Samcowman]

This was the exact same quote that stood out to me....

"Mr Spencer said it was farmers’ responsibility to get the right balance"

I haven't a clue how they can suggest that it's farmers responsibility! Food production isn't the farmer's responsibility at all.

Farmers respondiblity is to their own businesses, employees and families.

Governments don't seem to understand that THEY hold the power, THEY set the motivation and FARMERS are only responding to the signals that are being sent out.

Exactly. It is the farmers responsibility as business people to be profitable. If there is one income stream more profitable than another then it makes sense to take it whether that stream comes from RPA or ABP.

 

[Clive]

The irony is that if they hard cap SFI (ie no one can claim more than £X) they'll have the NT & RSPB et al screaming blue murder, so every cloud has a silver lining!

I've been wondering a while how the sums added up. I calculated I could more than double my BPS by stopping all food production on my farm and just putting the lot into various SFI options. If I can do that so can everyone else. So given we all got £90/acre before, there's not enough money for us all to get double. The sums only add up if loads of people claim nothing or significantly less than they used to, or the payments are capped in some way.

It sounds like the penny is dropping, and the new message will be - keep working peasants, we need the food so don't think you can just sit back and collect the eco-payments and do nothing. My guess is they will quite rapidly cap SFI payments at a level of £X per acre farmed, where X is less than the old BPS rate. This allows the big boys to claim more than the little ones, so they don't cut up rough, but caps the budget at less than BPS was.

if they bring in a cap my guess that it would more likely come via the treasury than DEFRA ......... ie put more than 50% of your farm in to none trading actions and you will loose IHT benefit ......... that would limit uptake !

as things stand I believe there is more than enough budget, SFI isn't attractive on good land thats farmed efficiently in my view hense why sentiment towards it is divided - productive land farmers are upset and they are loosing subs they didn't actually need but those on more marginal land are happy to be paid to produce lower risk crops for a different market




food security doesn't matter one jot in this - imports are the cheapest way for the government to feed the nation and fulfill environmental commitments its signed up to and we are already 47% dependant upon them before sfi, like it or not importing our food is the cheapest and easiest option for the politicians

nothing in sfi isn't reversible within a cropping year should a WW2 "dig for victory" situation happen again (V unlikely !) .......... but even with 100% of the uk producing food we are miles from self sufficient anyway

 

[Clive]

The whole jobs just going to be bollox and binned when next lot get in , they'll get their mates in IT to repeat the process and be as equally sh!t as this lot ...

Just flat rate it and get their meddling faces out the equation!

think Labour will have far more pressing / urgent issues than agriculture to sort out

and they really won't want to risk UK farmers "going french" on them or increasing food prices !

 

[db9go]

And so it begins ................

You can not trust any contract when one side can chanage the rules as they want
There legal bills are nothing but you will to pay your side

 

[Clive]

You can not trust any contract when one side can chanage the rules as they want
There legal bills are nothing but you will to pay your side

but they can't - contracts are legally binding and even governments have to stick to them

don't you think they would have got out of expensive energy contracts years ago if they could ?