@Janet Hughes Defra
we really need to know if Defra and Natural England's comment from The Instiute for Govt, seeking to lock Elms participants into a long term ,regulated and restrictive land designation , if you have ceased being involved in the Elms scheme is current policy.Please update us as its less than a few weeks before Sfi rolls out and if participating locks me forever into a land designation,eg like SSSI, devaluing my asset then no way will anyone participate.Thank you.
@Janet Hughes Defra. The
Institute for Government publication.
From a new "Institute for Government" report - UK agriculture after Brexit:
SFI summed up in the 2 sentences above...@Janet Hughes Defra,
thank you for your helpful reply.However I find it very disconcerting that it takes a member of this forum to get DEFRA to relook at the wording on their schemes,if I had not mentioned it, may be the wording would have caught ambitious local nature recovery farmer schemes , locking them into land designations.I was considering LNR but now feel its being looked at too closely by Natural England to see if they can lock you into a designation.
As I read the absolutely ridiculous masses of pages on SFI released yesterday it seems more and more that these schemes are far from simple and full of pitfalls(eg if herbal leys fail despite best efforts,you could be putting them in for 3 years not one).farmers will have to pay for expensive soil and Som tests,maybe herbal leys, and looking at the proforma of the soil plan will probably need expensive professional help to produce it. There is not going to be much subsidy left after paying for all of that.Sadly not simple,lots of extra costs,hidden regulations and not a great amount of subsidy. Such a lot of missed opportunities.
Someone in a key role is clearly making decisions about things they have no understanding of.....Hi @Janet Hughes Defra had a nice polite phone call from RPA this morning saying I hadn't done my CS claim for 2022 and that my Organic Certificate would need to run from 1st January 2022 to 31st December 2022.
I asked her to repeat as it didn't make sense , I have a online receipt for my 2022 CS claim and Organic Certificates can only go from month of inspection for 12 months, she repeated the same thing .
Unsure whether it was a wind up I rang the RPA and explained the phone call I had , chap on the phone said there's no way we'd ask for a calendar 12 months (January- December ) on your Organic Certificate it's your normal Organic Certificate and schedule we want , I also asked about my 2022 CS claim.
After being put on hold for several minutes he came back & said CS claim has been received but no Organic Certificate ( which was sent April 6th same day as online claim ) so must have been lost in the post ( his words ) and anyway we do now want a Calendar 12 months on your Certificate ( after saying there's no way they would want that).
Rang Organic Farmers and Growers explained to their Senior Certification Officer what RPA wanted, he said " No" & " I don't know how many departments RPA has but we've told them several times we can't do 12month calendar Certificates it would mean us having to inspect every farm in December " & " also your Certificate goes until 30th November 2022 surely that's close enough"
I then went to email RPA with my current Organic certificate & schedule, and the person that rang this morning had sent a email & confirmed I had sent my CS 2022 claim and also that I had agreed on the phone to contact Organic Farmers and Growers for a 12 month calendar Certificate .
I have emailed them back my current Organic Certificate & schedule and said I have contacted Organic Farmers & Growers and they don't give out 12 month calendar Certificates.
Is this right that the RPA now want 12 month calendar Organic Certificates?
How silly is that if a farm is inspected in June they'd need a 6 month extension, surely current Certificate at time of annual claim should be enough.
Another thing the Certification Officer told me is DEFRA have never liked Certificate extensions ( I had one during Covid as they got behind with inspections ) but now they seem to want them?
It's really stressful when your busy trying to sort these things out , this is 1 CS agreement what will happen when there's several SFI agreements? I won't have time to farm sorting the agreements out , I won't be claiming though as the extra stress isn't worth it.
Well I've gone back over the CS 2022 claim form -Someone in a key role is clearly making decisions about things they have no understanding of.....
Yes every other Gov scheme does and Farming support seems to be the exception.. RPI is fair... DEFRA is not fair and clearly doesn't value farmers?Surely any scheme should be directly linked to RPI if it runs for more than one year.