LIVE - DEFRA SFI Janet Hughes “ask me anything” 19:00-20:00 20th September (Today)

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Hello, I’m Janet Hughes. I’m the Programme Director for the Future Farming and Countryside Programme in Defra – the programme that’s phasing out the Common Agricultural Policy and introducing new schemes and services for farmers.



Today (20 September) between 7pm-8pm, I and some of my colleagues will be answering your questions about our work including the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Farming in Protected Landscapes, and our test and trials.



We’ll try to answer at least 15 of your top voted questions, so please vote on the questions you’d most like me to answer.



You can read more about our Future Farming policy on our blog.



I’ve answered some of your questions previously: you can watch the videos on the Farm TV or Defra’s YouTube (part 1 and part 2 of the videos). I’m happy to answer any follow-up questions about that, as well as other questions you might have.



Housekeeping:

• We’ll do our best to answer as many questions as we can, in the order in which you’ve voted on them
• If there are top voted questions we can’t answer immediately for whatever reason, we’ll do our best to come back with answers to them in the next few days
• If this works for you as a format, we’ll do it again, so let us know what you think!

Looking forward to seeing you at 7pm!

 

[Jo28]

Hello - thanks for your question

We're not planning for Red Tractor or any other assurance scheme to police environmental schemes on our behalf.

However, we are looking at possibly having some kind of earned recognition scheme for assurance schemes like Red Tractor, LEAF and organic certification so that people in those schemes can be recognised within government schemes.

What do you think? Does that seem like a good idea to you?

Where is the benefit?

 

[steveR]

Hello - thanks for your question

We're not planning for Red Tractor or any other assurance scheme to police environmental schemes on our behalf.

However, we are looking at possibly having some kind of earned recognition scheme for assurance schemes like Red Tractor, LEAF and organic certification so that people in those schemes can be recognised within government schemes.

What do you think? Does that seem like a good idea to you?

No. Sounds like the thin end of the wedge. Farming has already seen enough of Red Tractor and it's machinations.

Voluntary creeps into compulsion.

 

[topground]

Hello - thanks for your question

We're not planning for Red Tractor or any other assurance scheme to police environmental schemes on our behalf.

However, we are looking at possibly having some kind of earned recognition scheme for assurance schemes like Red Tractor, LEAF and organic certification so that people in those schemes can be recognised within government schemes.

What do you think? Does that seem like a good idea to you?

Any schemes that have any link with organisations such as Red Tractor which are controlled by the supermarket cartel will not be adopted here.

 

[spin cycle]

to start with i thought you 'voted' for a question by 'likying it'

so janet....given my obvious 'dimness' have i any chance of understanding 'sfi' ?

also why can't you vote for your own question?

6 mins gone...i've a feeling i'm in wrong place for answers

 

[Greythundercloudys]

Hi, how are ordinary family farms going to make up the loss of say 25000 grand in the next few year, buy 2025 fertiliser will be 400£ a ton, everyone can't do B&B or holiday let's, obviously the prise of stock, milk, barley will need to double like everything a farmer needs has.

 

[BrianV]

Hi Janet, this whole change in financial assistance for farmers to help improve our environment is obviously going to be very complicated & extremely difficult to get right without causing serious concern for farmers, would it not be much safer to carry the current SFP forward for a few years as everything is already in place but restrict the payments to the first 100 hectares or acres.
ELMS could be applied for above that acreage figure but this would mean that a large section of the farming community would continue as is until Defra iron out all the inevitable teething problems before imposing the finished article on every farmer!
It is obviously the bigger arable farmers that should be encouraged to take part in this first!

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Hi, thanks for the question - we set out our thinking about this in the Agricultural Transition Plan https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-transition-plan-2021-to-2024

In summary we will achieve these outcomes through a range of interventions including: environment schemes, support for innovation, research and development, investment in productivity, improved regulation. There are also others in Defra working on related issues such as supply chain fairness and wider food strategy.

It's an ambitious set of reforms, and not straightforward to get right - that's why we're here talking to you and spend lots of time talking to farmers and experts about how to make it work in reality. We're also taking a test and learn approach so that we can learn and adapt as we go. We regularly share what we're learning on our programme blog: https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/

By 2028, DEFRA want to see "a renewed agricultural sector, producing healthy food for consumption at home and abroad, where farms can be profitable and economically sustainable without subsidy" (DEFRA "Agricultural Transition Plan", 1.1.1). Nothing announced so far appears to stand any chance of acheiveing this critical aspiration given that the poor profitability of UK agriculture is overwhelmingly a market structure issue. Can Janet and the team explain how they intend to achieve this laudable aim?

 

[spin cycle]

Hello - thanks for your question

We're not planning for Red Tractor or any other assurance scheme to police environmental schemes on our behalf.

However, we are looking at possibly having some kind of earned recognition scheme for assurance schemes like Red Tractor, LEAF and organic certification so that people in those schemes can be recognised within government schemes.

What do you think? Does that seem like a good idea to you?

ANY link to assurance is 'down vote' IMO

 

[white_stuffed]

We are already in an HLS scheme, so we weren't able to sign up to the pilot.
Consequently, I am very conscious that I haven't paid enough detailed attention to the proposed standards, proposed payment rates etc.
This is human nature (laziness!) on my part. I don't have to study it yet, because it doesn't directly affect me yet.
However, I do wonder if you are missing the input from the very subset of farms which should be/will be the main participants in the scheme once our current stewardship schemes expire? (And the bits that I have looked at seem very complex. I was sent an improved grassland questionnaire by email which I tackled today but gave up as too complex.

 

[ajcc]

Food production is hugely important for the public. But we don't think subsidies are the right way forward because they stifle productivity growth, are unfair, drive up land and rent prices and don't produce much public benefit.

That's why we are going to spend the money instead on (a) supporting productivity in the sector and (b) investing in environmental, climate and animal health and welfare outcomes. The government has committed to maintain the same level of spending on agriculture but through these schemes instead of subsidies.

Also, we think food production and these outcomes can and should go hand in hand - it's not about choosing one or the other.

Call me cynical but I don’t think a hungry population is going to like this. Anymore than farmers whose vocation is to feed folk.

 

[Bossfarmer]

Food production is hugely important for the public. But we don't think subsidies are the right way forward because they stifle productivity growth, are unfair, drive up land and rent prices and don't produce much public benefit.

That's why we are going to spend the money instead on (a) supporting productivity in the sector and (b) investing in environmental, climate and animal health and welfare outcomes. The government has committed to maintain the same level of spending on agriculture but through these schemes instead of subsidies.

Also, we think food production and these outcomes can and should go hand in hand - it's not about choosing one or the other.

Is this for the UK or Scotland? Without subsidies up here on poorer yielding land many farms will quickly go out of business, one of the main reasons being our closes competitors the EU are heavily subsidied irish beef would undercut us

 

[StormInATeaCup]

Would Defra consider a ‘pasture for life’ livestock standard given its known environmental, animal welfare and human health benefits?

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Does Janet and the team agree with the NAO regarding the breakdown in trust between farmers and the DEFRA family? If so, how do they intend to rebuild that trust?

Yes we agree we have work to do to earn people's trust in these reforms- that's entirely understandable given the history, and given that these are the most radical reforms in the sector for 70 years.

We really want to deliver services that work and are trusted by farmers. I think we'll do this by engaging with farmers, listening to them and acting on what we hear, and by making sure what we provide services that work.
For example, we have 3,000+ farmers and others taking part in live tests and trials right now to inform scheme design to make sure the new schemes really work for farmers.

Any further ideas for things we can do to earn your trust very gratefully received!

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Why does DEFRA attach such a low value to buffer strips? Surely wide buffer strips (10meters), around ditches, ponds, rivers, hedges, trees, domestic dwellings, etc, would be a massive benefit to the environment, wildlife, and a big public good, but payment rates have always been pitiful, and so uptake not as high as it could be.

We'll pay for a mixture of buffer and other types of strips up to 10m wide through the SFI standards. We do think these are really important and valuable as you say.

We are currently reviewing all payment rates and plan to publish updated rates for existing schemes and SFI before the end of the year.

We're all ears about whether the standards work for you - we'll learn a lot through the pilot about this, and welcome other feedback too

 

[Chrisw]

Hi Janet,
How can it be possible for the farming in Protected Landscapes grant be assigned to the aonb teams, when it seems most (and certainly in cornwall) the aonb actively opposes farmers when they need to build a house (for example) to enable the business to manage the aonb they live in? My experience and quite a few others here are that rhe aonb teams are not helping the agricultural community at all.

 

[StormInATeaCup]

How does organic farming fit into ELMS? There seems to have been no mention of it to date

 

[2tractors]

Yes we agree we have work to do to earn people's trust in these reforms- that's entirely understandable given the history, and given that these are the most radical reforms in the sector for 70 years.

We really want to deliver services that work and are trusted by farmers. I think we'll do this by engaging with farmers, listening to them and acting on what we hear, and by making sure what we provide services that work.
For example, we have 3,000+ farmers and others taking part in live tests and trials right now to inform scheme design to make sure the new schemes really work for farmers.

Any further ideas for things we can do to earn your trust very gratefully received!

Changing the SFI payments from monthly to quarterly is not a good start.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Food production is hugely important for the public. But we don't think subsidies are the right way forward because they stifle productivity growth, are unfair, drive up land and rent prices and don't produce much public benefit.

That's why we are going to spend the money instead on (a) supporting productivity in the sector and (b) investing in environmental, climate and animal health and welfare outcomes. The government has committed to maintain the same level of spending on agriculture but through these schemes instead of subsidies.

Also, we think food production and these outcomes can and should go hand in hand - it's not about choosing one or the other.

The trouble is that on many farms food production is barely, or no longer, profitable without BPS. This is not a productivity issue, it is a structural one. We farmers have been persuaded over many decades by our Ag colleges, our advisers and our primary customers to greatly increase output using ever greater technical inputs. This has allowed the UK food industry beyond the farm gate to commodify food and drive the farmgate price down. SFI, LNR and LR will not address this. Nor will fancy grant schemes for more technology.

 

[manhill]

common sense says that food production (security) must be the number one priority.
Does DEFRA agree and on a scale of 1 to 10 where does production and environment sit?

 

[Sorbaer]

Hi Janet, I’ve seen DEFRA mention numerous times that they want to make this process simple for the farmer to do without the need for any agents leading to additional costs. I’m 24 and have qualifications in IT and computing and I would say I’m computer minded yet struggle to understand endless information which isn’t very clear. How do you expect my 65 year old dad with a basic nokia phone and very little computer knowledge to enroll himself into these new schemes? IMO things need to be made much much clearer and simpler.