For those farming less than 200 acres.

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
can I use my einbock to scratch in some herbal ley seeds after silage I wonder, or would the seeds not be aggressive enough to compete with the existing ley?

According to the details so far, the herbal ley should be a mix of grasses, legumes, herbs and wild flowers. The legumes and herbs (clover & plantains?) would be fairly easy to add to your grass ley, but wild flowers wouldn't generally like the competition or fertility perhaps. Best leave the buttercups after all...

Wales will have a different system, so I wouldn't go overboard on it yet. ;)
 

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
what about the seed ? if that was planted by ploughing/cultivating then harvested and packaged and shipped.
why is it assumed that to do the best thing from an environmental point of view that we have to change anything ? are we all bad ? is it just to get us to spend money ?
Do they think that everyone that doesn't have herbal leys must have monoculture ryegrass or some such ?
what is a herbal ley for this purpose anyway ? would it count if I was to throw around a bit of sage seed ?
I call my pp 'long term leys' 'cos I can remember them being ploughed 50+ years ago.
They are also herbal leys, as they are full of herbs, also called 'weeds'.
 

delilah

Member
@Janet Hughes Defra
As above. The whole point of PP, environmentally, is that it comprises those species which over decades have become dominant due to being best suited to the area.
Are we reading this correctly ? You want us to use public money to burn fossil fuel to introduce alien species ?

@Janet Hughes Defra

Not going to get a reply am I. No problem, just to hammer the point home then:

So far as the objectives of ELMS are concerned, PP is the perfect land use. It was, to all intents and purposes, here before we started farming and it will be here when we are gone. Every single organisation on your ELMS Engagement Group will see PP as ticking all of their boxes. It would be utterly insane to pay us to mess with it. Stitch alien species in, and all that will happen is they will over time disappear as the species that are meant to be there out compete them. If you have to include some basic requirements in order to justify the payment, then fine, just put stuff in about no poaching.

It is encouraging that the SFI is moving in the right direction, most notably the dawning recognition that taxpayer money should not be spent trying to interfere with cropping systems. Yet it's not far enough. There is not enough money in the pot to spread it over every farmed acre, and there is no public good in doing so. You have to bring forward the PP standard, and set the payment at a level that gives encouragement to carry on. Otherwise you will be responsible for the greatest emptying of the countryside we have seen in any of our lifetimes as the old folks pack up and the young ones drift away. And you will be completely fudged then, as there will be no-one left to deliver public good however you choose to define it.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Diversify, the whole idea really annoys me, basically everyone is saying "we want you to subsidise the supermarkets and then the general population by producing food with no profit, you can do this by working off farm, so your hours on the farm are basically unpaid". If it is uneconomic to farm, everyone should stop or reduce output, until the prices go up to make it economic.
 

delilah

Member
Have just been wading through the below email from Defra to see how it relates to our pilot. As things stand, we are being paid to pilot standards that they have already scrapped.

In doing so I was prompted to come back to this thread and ask the question: How many folks farming less than 200 acres are hanging on in there with their pilot ?

Defra say they have 4000 farmers engaged in designing ELMS. Presumably, for the exercise to be representative, most of those 4000 are farming less than the average farm size ?


Dear Sir or Madam

Thank you for your involvement in the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot and your extremely helpful feedback on what is and isn’t going well. This is helping us shape and improve both the pilot and the wider rollout of the Sustainable Farming Incentive. Your willingness to engage with us is highly valued and we look forward to continuing this conversation in the future.

We are now in a position to update you on:
  • Amending your agreement;
  • What happens if you need to end your agreement;
  • Our review of the pilot standards payment rates; and
  • Applying for capital grants funding from next month.
You can find more information about each of these below. We’ve also updated the GOV.UK guidance and the terms and conditions that apply to your agreement (search ‘Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot’).
If you haven’t had an agreement offer yet, we’ll be writing to you in the next few days with an update.

Amending agreements
Last September, we wrote to you to explain that we want to introduce a more flexible approach to amending pilot agreements than is possible for current schemes. We said that before introducing flexibility for ‘live’ agreements, we needed time to review possible approaches and that we would start to test these from May this year at the earliest.

Since then, we published more information last December about the Sustainable Farming Incentive, including being able to amend an agreement annually. We wanted to let you know that we will be introducing the same approach for Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot agreements. This means you will be able to amend your agreement every 12 months from its start date to add or remove land; add or remove a standard; and increase or decrease the ambition level for a standard that’s already in your agreement.

You will be able to ask us to amend your agreement during an ‘annual change period’. The timing of this period will depend on the start date of your agreement. For example, if your agreement started on 1 November 2021, your first opportunity to ask for an amendment will be during the period 1 August 2022 until 30 September 2022. This is so we can update your agreement to reflect the amendment, if it’s accepted, so it takes effect from the start of your agreement’s next full year. Your agreement will still last 3 years from its start date. You can find more information about the timing of your ‘annual change period’ and how to request an amendment on GOV.UK.

We won’t apply the amendment retrospectively, apart from if there are exceptional circumstances. If your agreement value reduces because of the amendment, for example because you have removed a standard or decreased your ambition level, you won’t have to repay payments already received for earlier agreement year(s).

Once your agreement starts you still need to tell us as soon as reasonably possible if there is a change in your circumstances that affects your eligibility for the pilot, the amount of money you should receive or your ability to fulfil the agreement. This is different to amending your agreement. You can find more information about this on GOV.UK.

Ending agreements
We’re hugely grateful for the time and effort you have been contributing to the pilot to make it a success, but we recognise that you may need to end your agreement before its 3-year term is completed.

You can do this at any time, but if your agreement ends mid-way through an agreement year you will have to repay what we’ve already paid you for the standards and learning activities for that year. This is because you won’t have completed these activities for the whole of that agreement year. We won’t ask you to repay payments received for an earlier agreement year as you will have already completed the activities for that year.

Payment rates
Earlier this month, we announced the outcome of our review of Countryside Stewardship revenue payment rates. We know you want to understand any impact this may have on the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot standards payment rates in your agreement.

We are reviewing these payment rates now and will let you know shortly if there are any changes. If a payment rate changes, it will apply from the start of your agreement.

Last year, we published the payment rates for the Arable and horticultural soils standard and the Improved grassland soils standard in the Sustainable Farming Incentive. Quite understandably, this prompted some of you to ask whether we will be updating the pilot soils standards payment rates to align with these. The payment rates are different because the actions you have to complete in the pilot soils standards are not the same as the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot soils standards.

As the pilot progresses, we will keep payment rates for both the standards and learning activities under review.

Applying for capital items funding
From next month (February 2022), you will be able to apply online for capital items funding. This will be in the Rural Payments service via a separate application portal in the ‘Environmental Land Management’ section, rather than the ‘Countryside Stewardship’ area.

The application will look and feel very similar to the main Countryside Stewardship Capital Grants offer, but there will be 28 capital items available which have been chosen to help you undertake the actions for the standards in your agreement.

You can check which capital items are available on the GOV.UK page for each standard (under ‘Funding for capital items’). We’re also introducing some flexibility for how some of the capital items can be used in the pilot to help you do what’s needed. We’ll explain these in the guidance to be published on GOV.UK when applications open.

If your application is successful, we will offer you a separate CS Capital Grants agreement for Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot participants. The terms of that agreement will apply to any capital items funding. If you intend to apply for this capital items funding, you must only begin the capital items work (or order materials) once your CS Capital Grants agreement starts.

We will let you know as soon as applications open and the detailed guidance is available on GOV.UK for you to read before you apply.

How to find out more information
We’ll be running some virtual online sessions for you to ask us about anything in this update that isn’t clear, or that you have questions about, so we can support you. The details of these will be shared with you very soon.

You can find all the guidance about the pilot on GOV.UK (search for ‘Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot’).

We’re here to help. If you have any questions about the pilot, please email us at [email protected] Your email should include ‘Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot’ in the subject header.

You can also call us on 03000 200 301. Please tell us your Single Business Identifier (SBI), which you can find at the top of this letter.
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
Have just been wading through the below email from Defra to see how it relates to our pilot. As things stand, we are being paid to pilot standards that they have already scrapped.

In doing so I was prompted to come back to this thread and ask the question: How many folks farming less than 200 acres are hanging on in there with their pilot ?

Defra say they have 4000 farmers engaged in designing ELMS. Presumably, for the exercise to be representative, most of those 4000 are farming less than the average farm size ?
I have had the same I didn’t sign the original with the November deadline and having amended my agreement to pull out of all of the grassland standards to leave just the hedgerow part ( because the grassland standards don’t allow the rotational grazing I practice and take no account of weather conditions and grass growth). I get the original agreement returned with no amendment. They are clearly short of numbers despite the information given to the Select Committee that 1000 farmers are participating in the pilot. If this is the way the scheme will be run it will be the shambles we all expect it to be.
@Janet Hughes Defra
 
I have had the same I didn’t sign the original with the November deadline and having amended my agreement to pull out of all of the grassland standards to leave just the hedgerow part ( because the grassland standards don’t allow the rotational grazing I practice and take no account of weather conditions and grass growth). I get the original agreement returned with no amendment. They are clearly short of numbers despite the information given to the Select Committee that 1000 farmers are participating in the pilot. If this is the way the scheme will be run it will be the shambles we all expect it to be.
@Janet Hughes Defra
I'm sorry to hear you've had problems with your application - if you DM me your details I can ask RPA colleagues to look into this for you
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Indeed. If wildlife, rewilding or nature recovery is what you really want then so much can be “achieved” by just leaving nature alone on the habitat front. Doesn’t really need a fortune spending, lots of fancy alien seed mixes or cultivation or a bus load of consultants.
Maintenance ready to be brought into production at short notice. That's a very old long-term view.
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Yes indeedy. If the much trotted out Countryfile-esque phrase " xx % of xxxxx has been lost since the 1970's ", maybe the best thing for wildlife would be to return to sub 200 acre family farms of......the 1970's. Those somewhat neglected hedgerows, those tumbledown out buildings that were home to barn owls pre let's convert everything into holiday cottages, dog and stick permanent pasture that maybe gets topped once per year......
I'll bet there would have been a greater wildlife benefit paying £20k each to keep small fry on the land rather than paying big boys to sow strips of weeds around margins, and putting up Ikea plywood nest boxes on poles.

Too late now.
 

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
I've just been looking at;

The conclusions are quite interesting

6. Conclusions

The results of applying the Nethergill approach to the farm accounts of 46 farms in upland and marginal areas have shown that expanding flock and herd sizes in the uplands to overcome disadvantages of latitude, elevation and precipitation is economically damaging as well as damaging for the environment. The nature of non-linear variable costs implies that future success will not come from chasing volume growth alone. In fact, once the locally available grass (essentially at free-issue cost) has run out the farming activity becomes less profitable with expansion. Therefore, pursuing a business model that is solely production based – assuming increased profitability will ensue from increased volume of output – is not economically sustainable. The findings from this analysis challenge the received wisdom that greater profitability can be achieved from increasing production as a result of economies of scale. Instead, the results should help farmers focus on adjusting their management towards activities that would achieve greatest profit margin. If this is done, the analysis shows that this would lead many upland farmers to adjust their stocking levels downwards. In turn, where over-grazing is an issue, this in turn will have knock on environmental benefits by reducing some of the environmental pressure on the land. The analysis has also shown that, when public support payments are taken out of the revenue line, for some farms reducing stocking levels to the MSO reduces financial losses, but it does not take them into profit. The current system of support has hidden the true financial situation of the agricultural activities taking place on upland farms and has provided a safety net that has meant that insufficient attention has often been paid to the underlying profitability of their operations. This highlights the importance for farmers to review their farm accounts in detail and proactively engage in business planning to find ways to improve their long-term viability. This is especially important now in order to prepare for the introduction of new systems of public support to agriculture in the UK, particularly the planned removal of direct payments in England and Wales. By looking in detail at the accounts of the agricultural part of the business for this selection of upland farms, it has also become clear that the level of fixed costs is unsustainable, particularly looking ahead to a situation without direct payments. Not all fixed costs identified were essential to the farm operation or being used as efficiently as they could be, and this suggests that urgent attention is required to reduce these as far as possible as another means of boosting profit margins (or reducing losses). There are a number of options to address this. Where the agricultural enterprise is or becomes one of a portfolio of businesses on the farm, fixed costs can be spread between the businesses, however in other cases, a more collaborative and cooperative approach to managing multiple farms’ resources may provide a solution. Focussing on these types of solutions may help maintain many of the small to medium sized family farms that are under pressure financially and yet form an important element of local communities. Given the reduced pressure on the environment that would be brought about by reducing stocking levels to the MSO, this also provides farmers with opportunities to benefit from increased income associated with the delivery of environmental outcomes. This could be through changing their focus and purpose towards producing meat as a means of delivering environmental outcomes, resulting in a focus on producing high quality meat products, using their environmental credentialsto achieve a price premium. In addition, there will be opportunities to take greater advantage of public payments for delivering environmental and climate benefits that are valued by society. 23 However, it should also be recognised that in some upland situations, under-grazing is increasingly becoming an issue from an environmental perspective, particularly on areas of land that are more difficult to access and manage. In these cases, for environmental purposes an increase in stocking levels would be required, to bring levels up to the MSO level. In other situations, there may be a need to maintain stocking output levels above the MSO level to manage a particular habitat to achieve an identified environmental outcome (e.g. increase populations of breeding waders). In these cases, payments to farmers to deliver these outcomes will also be required, either to increase stocking levels to the MSO level or maintain them above. It may be that, as agricultural support systems change in coming years, if reducing fixed costs and increasing income cannot deliver the necessary profit margins, that some restructuring may take place, with larger farm units, managed by fewer farmers, a trend which has been taking place for many years already. However, improved business planning and taking advantage of the options above should help avoid this wherever possible. Key will be to find a way that this can happen without damaging the environment or losing the character of the countryside or local communities that are an important part of our natural and cultural heritage. This transition to a new business model for upland farming will not take place overnight nor without additional support for farmers and crofters such as through enhanced advice, training and knowledge transfer initiatives. It is also clear that there will remain situations where the economics of running an upland farm cannot be made to work. In these cases, decisions will have to be made about what course of action to take. For smaller enterprises, developing a portfolio of revenue streams is likely to be the future, whereas larger farms may be able to justify focussing on farming alone. It would be interesting to apply this approach to other farming systems in the UK, such as lowland grazing and arable systems, as initial analysis suggests that similar results may be found.


Some of the key messages that flow from this analysis are as follows:

• Hill farms and those in other marginal areas face economic challenges but they could improve their own business performance without recourse to financial support by reducing stocking levels. This requires the farm business model to shift from a focus on production to a focus on profit margins.

• Moving stocking levels to MSO levels, i.e. those that can be achieved on the naturally available grass, without requiring additional inputs, is also generally beneficial for the environment. By improving the condition of a farm’s natural assets this in turn should improve the flow of ecosystem services, such as clean water or reduced flood risk.

• Alongside reducing stocking levels, reducing fixed costs and increasing income from farming activities are important components of improving profit margin. Making farm assets work harder, for example through greater collaboration and cooperation between farmers, as well as adding value to meat products andmarketing on the basis of its environmental credentials, are examples of opportunities to which farms operating in upland and marginal areas could give greater consideration.

• To inform such decisions, business planning is critical. This allowsthe underlying profitability of the farming part of the business to be understood before income from financial support and other sources is taken into account, which in turn can inform decisions to be made about the 24 course of action to take to assure the long-term viability of the business. Farming activities can be one of a portfolio of businesses operating on or from the farm, but it is important that the economic viability of each of these is understood.

• Reversing the environmental declines in upland and marginal farming areas requires more than simply adjusting stocking levels. In some cases, under-grazing is the issue and stocking levels require increasing and in others stocking levels above the MSO may be required to achieve specific outcomes. The approach therefore has relevance to public policy in demonstrating that in some cases, payments may be required to cover these additional costs for the delivery of public goods.

• Finally, these findings suggest that in these upland and marginal situations, a shift in mindset away from the production of meat as a commodity towards grazing livestock to produce environmental benefits can actually improve the economic resilience of the business and help assure the long-term economic viability of these farming systems.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Maintenance ready to be brought into production at short notice. That's a very old long-term view.
Permanent pasture always was the standard way to keep land “on standby” ready to be ploughed up in times of need. Building OM, not costing a lot in inputs, grazing a few animals etc. Keep the pernicious weeds down. But if they want reversion to scrub then woodland then just don’t graze or top it. It doesn’t really need that much human intervention. It will look a terrible mess though while the brambles take over and probably take 50 years or so to start looking like woodland in places. Dare I say the same process would happen anyway if they just removed the subs and poorer land became uneconomic to farm by anything other than a few grazing animals.
There is 25 acres opposite us that was originally the parkland and cricket pitch of the now gone big house. Hasn’t been touched for 40 years. Now a nice mix of open tussocky grass and young trees. Just what the doctor ordered. Not a pound spent. Owner holding out for hotel development.🙄
 

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
I've just been looking at;

The conclusions are quite interesting

6. Conclusions

The results of applying the Nethergill approach to the farm accounts of 46 farms in upland and marginal areas have shown that expanding flock and herd sizes in the uplands to overcome disadvantages of latitude, elevation and precipitation is economically damaging as well as damaging for the environment. The nature of non-linear variable costs implies that future success will not come from chasing volume growth alone. In fact, once the locally available grass (essentially at free-issue cost) has run out the farming activity becomes less profitable with expansion. Therefore, pursuing a business model that is solely production based – assuming increased profitability will ensue from increased volume of output – is not economically sustainable. The findings from this analysis challenge the received wisdom that greater profitability can be achieved from increasing production as a result of economies of scale. Instead, the results should help farmers focus on adjusting their management towards activities that would achieve greatest profit margin. If this is done, the analysis shows that this would lead many upland farmers to adjust their stocking levels downwards. In turn, where over-grazing is an issue, this in turn will have knock on environmental benefits by reducing some of the environmental pressure on the land. The analysis has also shown that, when public support payments are taken out of the revenue line, for some farms reducing stocking levels to the MSO reduces financial losses, but it does not take them into profit. The current system of support has hidden the true financial situation of the agricultural activities taking place on upland farms and has provided a safety net that has meant that insufficient attention has often been paid to the underlying profitability of their operations. This highlights the importance for farmers to review their farm accounts in detail and proactively engage in business planning to find ways to improve their long-term viability. This is especially important now in order to prepare for the introduction of new systems of public support to agriculture in the UK, particularly the planned removal of direct payments in England and Wales. By looking in detail at the accounts of the agricultural part of the business for this selection of upland farms, it has also become clear that the level of fixed costs is unsustainable, particularly looking ahead to a situation without direct payments. Not all fixed costs identified were essential to the farm operation or being used as efficiently as they could be, and this suggests that urgent attention is required to reduce these as far as possible as another means of boosting profit margins (or reducing losses). There are a number of options to address this. Where the agricultural enterprise is or becomes one of a portfolio of businesses on the farm, fixed costs can be spread between the businesses, however in other cases, a more collaborative and cooperative approach to managing multiple farms’ resources may provide a solution. Focussing on these types of solutions may help maintain many of the small to medium sized family farms that are under pressure financially and yet form an important element of local communities. Given the reduced pressure on the environment that would be brought about by reducing stocking levels to the MSO, this also provides farmers with opportunities to benefit from increased income associated with the delivery of environmental outcomes. This could be through changing their focus and purpose towards producing meat as a means of delivering environmental outcomes, resulting in a focus on producing high quality meat products, using their environmental credentialsto achieve a price premium. In addition, there will be opportunities to take greater advantage of public payments for delivering environmental and climate benefits that are valued by society. 23 However, it should also be recognised that in some upland situations, under-grazing is increasingly becoming an issue from an environmental perspective, particularly on areas of land that are more difficult to access and manage. In these cases, for environmental purposes an increase in stocking levels would be required, to bring levels up to the MSO level. In other situations, there may be a need to maintain stocking output levels above the MSO level to manage a particular habitat to achieve an identified environmental outcome (e.g. increase populations of breeding waders). In these cases, payments to farmers to deliver these outcomes will also be required, either to increase stocking levels to the MSO level or maintain them above. It may be that, as agricultural support systems change in coming years, if reducing fixed costs and increasing income cannot deliver the necessary profit margins, that some restructuring may take place, with larger farm units, managed by fewer farmers, a trend which has been taking place for many years already. However, improved business planning and taking advantage of the options above should help avoid this wherever possible. Key will be to find a way that this can happen without damaging the environment or losing the character of the countryside or local communities that are an important part of our natural and cultural heritage. This transition to a new business model for upland farming will not take place overnight nor without additional support for farmers and crofters such as through enhanced advice, training and knowledge transfer initiatives. It is also clear that there will remain situations where the economics of running an upland farm cannot be made to work. In these cases, decisions will have to be made about what course of action to take. For smaller enterprises, developing a portfolio of revenue streams is likely to be the future, whereas larger farms may be able to justify focussing on farming alone. It would be interesting to apply this approach to other farming systems in the UK, such as lowland grazing and arable systems, as initial analysis suggests that similar results may be found.


Some of the key messages that flow from this analysis are as follows:

• Hill farms and those in other marginal areas face economic challenges but they could improve their own business performance without recourse to financial support by reducing stocking levels. This requires the farm business model to shift from a focus on production to a focus on profit margins.

• Moving stocking levels to MSO levels, i.e. those that can be achieved on the naturally available grass, without requiring additional inputs, is also generally beneficial for the environment. By improving the condition of a farm’s natural assets this in turn should improve the flow of ecosystem services, such as clean water or reduced flood risk.

• Alongside reducing stocking levels, reducing fixed costs and increasing income from farming activities are important components of improving profit margin. Making farm assets work harder, for example through greater collaboration and cooperation between farmers, as well as adding value to meat products andmarketing on the basis of its environmental credentials, are examples of opportunities to which farms operating in upland and marginal areas could give greater consideration.

• To inform such decisions, business planning is critical. This allowsthe underlying profitability of the farming part of the business to be understood before income from financial support and other sources is taken into account, which in turn can inform decisions to be made about the 24 course of action to take to assure the long-term viability of the business. Farming activities can be one of a portfolio of businesses operating on or from the farm, but it is important that the economic viability of each of these is understood.

• Reversing the environmental declines in upland and marginal farming areas requires more than simply adjusting stocking levels. In some cases, under-grazing is the issue and stocking levels require increasing and in others stocking levels above the MSO may be required to achieve specific outcomes. The approach therefore has relevance to public policy in demonstrating that in some cases, payments may be required to cover these additional costs for the delivery of public goods.

• Finally, these findings suggest that in these upland and marginal situations, a shift in mindset away from the production of meat as a commodity towards grazing livestock to produce environmental benefits can actually improve the economic resilience of the business and help assure the long-term economic viability of these farming systems.

My thoughts on this report Funded by: The RSPB, National Trust and The Wildlife Trusts

It is positive that they recognise the 'environmental credentials' of meat produced from uplands and marginal areas.
It is good that they understand the importance of good grazing management in terms of both, under and over grazing. They even recommend paying for this as delivering public goods.
I think it is positive that they appreciate the need for payment for these environmental benefits to assure the long term economic viability of these farming systems.

The huge problem with this report and my local landscape recovery plan, is that they don't understand the economics of farming and blithely claim that monies can be saved and premiums on produce can be achieved when we would quite obviously being doing that already, if possible.
With stagnating prices, stocking levels have had to increase by about 5% / per annum to maintain income.
 

Jackov Altraids

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Permanent pasture always was the standard way to keep land “on standby” ready to be ploughed up in times of need. Building OM, not costing a lot in inputs, grazing a few animals etc. Keep the pernicious weeds down. But if they want reversion to scrub then woodland then just don’t graze or top it. It doesn’t really need that much human intervention. It will look a terrible mess though while the brambles take over and probably take 50 years or so to start looking like woodland in places. Dare I say the same process would happen anyway if they just removed the subs and poorer land became uneconomic to farm by anything other than a few grazing animals.
There is 25 acres opposite us that was originally the parkland and cricket pitch of the now gone big house. Hasn’t been touched for 40 years. Now a nice mix of open tussocky grass and young trees. Just what the doctor ordered. Not a pound spent. Owner holding out for hotel development.🙄

But the major flaw with landscape recovery is, recovered to what?

In most cases, a woodland/ forest is the final result of no intervention.
It is the habitats that exist for brief periods during natural transition that are essential for different flora and fauna. These habitats will not persist without management.
This has been done by farmers, for free, for millennia.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

  • 1,293
  • 1
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/
Top