ELMS co-design submissions.

[steveR]

Plenty of digestate rigs go much heavier than that apparently

Yeah, seen them around here, Leaving ruts on stubbles in late August!!

Would not allow them on my Grassland...

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Clearing out some of the things Dad had hoarded from the past and came across this one. This is what it looks like when the ministry responsible for agriculture actually co-operates with farmers....

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

@Janet Hughes Defra

So. Co-design.
No-one can say that farmers haven't kept their side of the bargain. Thousands of thoughts and suggestions posted on here alone, plus whatever you have picked up via other mediums.
Please could you give us some examples of how this has influenced the decision making process. I don't mean the minutiae. The tweaking of payment rates. The shuffling of deckchairs.
Some examples of substantive change. Changes that will make a fundamental difference to farmer uptake. To public good. To value for money for the taxpayer.
Thanks.

Morning. Yes, happy to do that - here are a few examples:

- we trialled different ways to support collaboration between farmers; we learned that facilitation is very valuable, and that most farmers prefer to enter into individual rather than collective agreements. Both of these will be reflected in the design of local nature recovery - we will fund local facilitators and have individual not collective agreements

- we’ve had loads of detailed feedback from farmers in the SFI pilot about how the standards are working for them, and we will revise them all on that basis, as we’ve already done on the soils standards to make them more flexible, less prescriptive and more widely applicable

- we’ve had trials of different ways to set payments such as auctions and payment by results, and learned that though there are advantages to these approaches, they can also be unfair and overly complicated and put people off taking part

- we’re testing different ways to support whole farm planning - farmers have worked to develop some different approaches which we’re now testing with farmers in the SFI pilot (spoiler - guidance can be useful, mandatory templates and formats not so much, so we will reflect that in scheme design)

- we’re adjusting the budget as we go to follow demand, make sure every farm type can access funding that works for them and allow people to choose what they want to get paid for - eg we increased the budgets for CS and productivity grants

- we’re now working with groups of farmers to co-design the options for local nature recovery and standards for SFI, so that they work in a range of farm settings (rather than us designing them and asking for feedback, as we’ve done previously)

 

[delilah]

Morning. Yes, happy to do that - here are a few examples:

- we trialled different ways to support collaboration between farmers; we learned that facilitation is very valuable, and that most farmers prefer to enter into individual rather than collective agreements. Both of these will be reflected in the design of local nature recovery - we will fund local facilitators and have individual not collective agreements

- we’ve had loads of detailed feedback from farmers in the SFI pilot about how the standards are working for them, and we will revise them all on that basis, as we’ve already done on the soils standards to make them more flexible, less prescriptive and more widely applicable

- we’ve had trials of different ways to set payments such as auctions and payment by results, and learned that though there are advantages to these approaches, they can also be unfair and overly complicated and put people off taking part

- we’re testing different ways to support whole farm planning - farmers have worked to develop some different approaches which we’re now testing with farmers in the SFI pilot (spoiler - guidance can be useful, mandatory templates and formats not so much, so we will reflect that in scheme design)

- we’re adjusting the budget as we go to follow demand, make sure every farm type can access funding that works for them and allow people to choose what they want to get paid for - eg we increased the budgets for CS and productivity grants

- we’re now working with groups of farmers to co-design the options for local nature recovery and standards for SFI, so that they work in a range of farm settings (rather than us designing them and asking for feedback, as we’ve done previously)

You need to show us some SFI standards that the sub-200 acre, one-person-band will be falling over themselves to apply for. Otherwise it's just words.

 

[Dave645]

Morning. Yes, happy to do that - here are a few examples:

- we trialled different ways to support collaboration between farmers; we learned that facilitation is very valuable, and that most farmers prefer to enter into individual rather than collective agreements. Both of these will be reflected in the design of local nature recovery - we will fund local facilitators and have individual not collective agreements

- we’ve had loads of detailed feedback from farmers in the SFI pilot about how the standards are working for them, and we will revise them all on that basis, as we’ve already done on the soils standards to make them more flexible, less prescriptive and more widely applicable

- we’ve had trials of different ways to set payments such as auctions and payment by results, and learned that though there are advantages to these approaches, they can also be unfair and overly complicated and put people off taking part

- we’re testing different ways to support whole farm planning - farmers have worked to develop some different approaches which we’re now testing with farmers in the SFI pilot (spoiler - guidance can be useful, mandatory templates and formats not so much, so we will reflect that in scheme design)

- we’re adjusting the budget as we go to follow demand, make sure every farm type can access funding that works for them and allow people to choose what they want to get paid for - eg we increased the budgets for CS and productivity grants

- we’re now working with groups of farmers to co-design the options for local nature recovery and standards for SFI, so that they work in a range of farm settings (rather than us designing them and asking for feedback, as we’ve done previously)

You say co design for the local nature recovery scheme, to do so we would need an outline of the type of work that it covers it’s scope a lot of details, basically what’s in your instruction remit from the government.
What if we disagree with the instruction remit for the scheme?
To be part of the design we would also want to give feed back on the remit for the schemes goals.

my personal opinion is that all the schemes should be capped, by that I mean not on a per scheme Capp, but total per farm cap.

So the money is spread evenly. Every farm under 100ha has the chance to claim the same amount of their full BPS money from schemes. Plus let’s say a 20% max.

Say I am happy to do a NRS and put in for a nice big one, my aim is to total replace all the money I once got from BPS, you say yes that’s fine, then great I have hit my money cap, with the money linked to inflation etc.

but if I cannot go big or my area is not one you want a large NRS then my pot is there so I have to do a little from all 3 schemes to get it.

I also still believe that scheme money should be on the first 100ha of every farms claimed BPS money, and that simple ways to unlock that money that don’t effect overall profitability of the farm are needed.
Most big farms can find 100ha of less productive land or areas of a much bigger farm to put 100ha into a scheme that will earn the same money as BPS did.
What moneys left is then split up by farmers over the 100ha size to put into schemes that they can implement.

My point is in the end the NRS is going to have the biggest effect, if you tie money to schemes rather than farms you may miss small farms putting in for NRS schemes.
in some respects opening all 3 schemes with this type of funding at the same time, may well see you get far larger uptake of NRS and rather than 3 schemes it’s one that’s multi faceted.
Working on a farm level budget of BPS plus 10-20% max on the first 100ha and any claim over that max that has more land is put in a competitive scheme for items over the 100ha money cap.
that gets you every farmer that want to put the first 100ha into the super scheme to get the equiverlent to bps money as the pot sits there for say 5 years in their farms name if they still farm it. Not accumulating just ear marked.
So farms get 5 years to fine tune their application.

super rushed so no doubt full of errors but hay ho it’s off to work I go.

 

[andybk]

You say co design for the local nature recovery scheme, to do so we would need an outline of the type of work that it covers it’s scope a lot of details, basically what’s in your instruction remit from the government.
What if we disagree with the instruction remit for the scheme?
To be part of the design we would also want to give feed back on the remit for the schemes goals.

my personal opinion is that all the schemes should be capped, by that I mean not on a per scheme Capp, but total per farm cap.

So the money is spread evenly. Every farm under 100ha has the chance to claim the same amount of their full BPS money from schemes. Plus let’s say a 20% max.

Your missing the point , NT NE and RSPB have spent millions on lobbyists to influence this policy , where do you think these ideas come from in the first place ? , no way they want any sort of cap , The goldsmiths etc have a lot riding on it as well over the carbon capture issues , and they are best pals with Carrie .(they didnt foresee Putin messing it all up though )

 

[Dave645]

Your missing the point , NT NE and RSPB have spent millions to lobbyists , to influence this policy , no way they want any sort of cap , The goldsmiths etc have a lot riding on it over the carbon capture issues .(they didnt foresee Putin messing it all up )

The point did not escape me, it was exactly why I made that suggestion. . .
farming does for free more than these other groups put together do.
So why are they entitled to farmings support payments, especaly the small farmers support payment.
I don’t think they are more entitled to it, so hence my suggestion, in the end it will be up to each farmer to decide if anything in the schemes is worth doing, but it’s seems a poor solution to not give all farmers all the options from the get go to see which scheme type will suit them best and claim their pot from.
DEFRA may have ended up with lots of NR projects, that actually deliver far greater benefit to nature in the long run.
Leaving the farmer just one thing to implement, not several.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

You need to show us some SFI standards that the sub-200 acre, one-person-band will be falling over themselves to apply for. Otherwise it's just words.

I visited some farmers on Friday in that category as it happens (some maybe just over that size, but in the same general ballpark) - small, family, beef and dairy farms in Devon. They are taking part in the pilot and had generally entered into several different standards across their whole farm. I'm not saying that means everything works for everyone, of course, as every farm is different and we know we have a lot to learn and improve from this point forward based on what we learn in the pilot and during early rollout. I'm just sharing since you asked the question.