Environmental schemes; Arable Vs. Livestock

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
I fail to see that.
The Bangladeshi taxi driver stood in the river will struggle to understand how one side of the bank is paid so much less than the other when they are providing the same public good.
You're absolutely right. The grass margin and water benefits/ public goods are doing exactly the same job or better on the grassland as on the arable.
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
You're absolutely right. The grass margin and water benefits/ public goods are doing exactly the same job or better on the grassland as on the arable.
Better, worse or equal job on arable or grassland buffers. Suppose we could discuss it all night,

No matter, @delilah makes the best suggestion. For such things, if they're really serious about wanting them, and should be because we're told time and time again how it's important to improve water quality, they should offer really good payment rates. At least £1,000/ha, so all/most watercourse get buffer zones.
 

Raider112

Member
With the EU subsidies we were only allowed to plough out a percentage of our permanent pasture, presumably because of the carbon they retain?
We are told that in this part of the world (but not in the rain forests) that PP is every bit as good as trees for sequestering carbon so why are we now being encouraged to have less PP? what's the point in discouraging us from keeping ruminants to save the planet if in doing so we are damaging the planet?
 

delilah

Member
Better, worse or equal job on arable or grassland buffers. Suppose we could discuss it all night,

No matter, @delilah makes the best suggestion. For such things, if they're really serious about wanting them, and should be because we're told time and time again how it's important to improve water quality, they should offer really good payment rates. At least £1,000/ha, so all/most watercourse get buffer zones.

Read somewhere that for every £1 spent on keeping pollutants out of drinking water it saves £17 on treating the water.
ELMS really doesn't need to be complicated.
 

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Purli R

Member
Getting back to the answer of your question

Stewardship schemes on livestock enterprises have rules such as

No supplementary feeding
No feeders
No or restricted fertiliser
No spraying
Late cutting dates of grassland
No reseeding
No cultivation
No forage crops
No silage making
No stock or reduced stocking rates

Now someone will come along and say well it’s optional well yes it is but a few of them rules apply to bps too which is also optional
Upland schemes are more restrictive than lower land schemes for livestock farms
Government can’t force you to join these things but they can contribute by making economic conditions so that you need to join
I have a lot of land in these things some in and some out
Hope you aint got any moorland with any bare peat or peat bogs that need "restoring" that Natural England want you to enter into countryside stewardship, especially if you have an existing HLS coming to an end. Cos the fekers will turn yer brains to mush. :mad: :mad: :banghead:👎
 
Hope you aint got any moorland with any bare peat or peat bogs that need "restoring" that Natural England want you to enter into countryside stewardship, especially if you have an existing HLS coming to an end. Cos the fekers will turn yer brains to mush. :mad: :mad: :banghead:👎
About 2000 acre of that and been on with it for years now
 
Getting anywhere?
Well I’ve been getting the finger pointed for the exposed peat in the last 20 years or so but we are over that now. Huge reduction in grazing but having a struggle to get sheep to eat what’s there at the moment. Sort of got used to a lot of it now. The exposed peat is still there by the way
 

Purli R

Member
Well I’ve been getting the finger pointed for the exposed peat in the last 20 years or so but we are over that now. Huge reduction in grazing but having a struggle to get sheep to eat what’s there at the moment. Sort of got used to a lot of it now. The exposed peat is still there by the way
So getting nowhere :D hope your getting a draw somewhere(y):D
 

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
The whole idea of land being either designated arable or pasture is actually part of the problem.
Over 50 years ago, pretty much every farm would have had a good mixture.
Having arbitrarily fixed land as one or the other, has helped the decline of mixed farming and crop rotation while affecting biodiversity with vast areas growing similar crops.
To decide to pay a completely different level for the same outcomes on different designations is grossly unfair and wrong.
 
Read somewhere that for every £1 spent on keeping pollutants out of drinking water it saves £17 on treating the water.
ELMS really doesn't need to be complicated.


Most countryside Rainwater is seperated from Sewers by default. ALL City & Town Rainwater is immediately polluted in Sewers by design - mixed with industrial & commercial waste with god knows what in it.

You don't hear anything about the pollution of all natural potable water immediately in Towns & Cities by the "Environment Agency" ? Why is that I wonder ? In theory that water SHOULD be some of the cleanest at source given most man made materials on roofs do not pollute. Yet that water is treated as waste.

Sewerage should be recycled - sewerage held in Septic tanks can. The same cannot be said of Town & City Sewerage.

IMHO it's just another load of BS by the useless brigade "fixing" a problem that doesn't exist - whilst the real problems are totally ignored.

Lets treat all our viable resources as rubbish instead and pay those making our food to stop making food.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
The whole idea of land being either designated arable or pasture is actually part of the problem.
Over 50 years ago, pretty much every farm would have had a good mixture.
Having arbitrarily fixed land as one or the other, has helped the decline of mixed farming and crop rotation while affecting biodiversity with vast areas growing similar crops.
To decide to pay a completely different level for the same outcomes on different designations is grossly unfair and wrong.
Exactly.
"If" they want to draw a line somewhere, pay for perennials and don't pay for annuals.
Perennials build landscape function, annuals do not.
If you can afford to terminate perfectly good plants then you don't need financial assistance
 
Can think of several occasions where either ourselves or neighbours wanted to leave grass in few more years, but had got to end of 5 years and would have been designated PP, so it got ploughed up.

Madness.

Result was opposite of what their rules were trying to achieve.
Why?
The rules regarding ploughing permanent pasture aren’t in the least onerous, any grassland that has been fairly actively farmed can be ploughed at any time provided it’s been regularly fertilsed and or sprayed ( a brief summary of the rules).

The rules regarding not ploughing permanent pasture pretty much only apply to pasture that is highly unlikely to be ploughed anyway.

The 5 years and it becomes permanent is a bit of a ridiculous ruling really, under that ruling a field could be reseeded with Italian ryegrass every year and be classified as permanent pasture after 5 years, it’s just a ridiculous definition, heck, if 5 years is the length of time required for something to be classed as a permanent feature, there are pot holes in the road around here that meet that definition.
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
Why?
The rules regarding ploughing permanent pasture aren’t in the least onerous, any grassland that has been fairly actively farmed can be ploughed at any time provided it’s been regularly fertilsed and or sprayed ( a brief summary of the rules).

The rules regarding not ploughing permanent pasture pretty much only apply to pasture that is highly unlikely to be ploughed anyway.

The 5 years and it becomes permanent is a bit of a ridiculous ruling really, under that ruling a field could be reseeded with Italian ryegrass every year and be classified as permanent pasture after 5 years, it’s just a ridiculous definition, heck, if 5 years is the length of time required for something to be classed as a permanent feature, there are pot holes in the road around here that meet that definition.
You're right, can still plough up 'cultivated' pasture (over 5 years old). The fear is more mission creep and they suddenly change the rules, so keep on safe side, as the RPA system would auto classify it as PP.

Agree it's a ridiculous rule. Then there's the "I had a quick 4 months of late summer stubble turnips, then back to grass in spring", so RPA computer thinks it's been PP all the time, when it hasn't. So they don't know, but classify it as PP anyway.
 
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andybk

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Mendips Somerset
Instead of obstructing farmers with prohibitive rules, why don't they just pay for grassland?

I realise I have now agreed with Delilah, but I don't think this should be the only payment.
should have been where they started , cereals / arable are generally in cs or similar schemes , can tinker around the edges as time goes on , Land agents might be quiet for a while though
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
You're right, can still plough up 'cultivated' pasture (over 5 years old). The fear is more mission creep and they suddenly change the rules, so keep on safe side, as the ROA system would auto classify it as PP.

Agree it's a ridiculous rule. Then there's the "I had a quick 4 months of late summer stubble turnips, then back to grass in spring", so RPA computer thinks it's been PP all the time, when it hasn't. So they don't know, but classify it as PP anyway.
this just shows, how lack of trust of the authorities causes all sorts of actions that are not good for anybody, but I would not trust the statutory bodies as far as I could throw them.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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