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!

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

We expressed an interest, spent a fair bit of time trying to understand the standards and have submitted an SFI pilot application for the parcels of land we didn't already have in stewardship, but does this mean that if we're not in the first / best 1000 applications the time we've spent on making the application has been wasted?

No it won't be wasted effort - if you apply and you're eligible, you will get in; it's not competitive or restricted in any way other than for eligibility.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Where is the benefit?

We think there would be some benefit, if you're already in a scheme (organic, OF&G, LEAF for example), if government recognise that and take it into account so you're not inspected twice for the same things. But we're still testing this idea and how it might work, so it's interesting and useful to see the feedback on here about it.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

We decided to restrict the pilot to parcels not already in schemes in order to keep it simple to start with. For the main scheme, you'll be able to enter into SFI on parcels already in other schemes so long as there's no conflict or duplication between the two. For example if we're already paying you to create woodland on a parcel of land, we won't also pay you for an SFI grassland option on the same parcel.

Meanwhile we are working with a much wider range of farmers outside the pilot to test how the new scheme will work - if you'd like to get involved in that, please get in touch. The more critical eyes we have on the schemes as they develop, the better.

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.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

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

We'd expect organic farmers to be able to enter into higher levels of ambition in the SFI scheme, since a lot of the actions we'll pay for are things you'd already be doing if you're certified organic. We're working with the organic bodies to make sure our standards don't accidentally contradict or exclude organic standards.

If you're already in an existing scheme option for organic, then we'll provide a smooth way for you to transfer across to ELM schemes when they're fully up and running, from 2024 onwards.

We're also looking at the possibility of an earned recognition scheme, so we can take into account your organic accreditation for regulatory and scheme purpose - we're working on how that might work now.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

What purpose has Defra and National policies when the devolved powers across the Country do what they want and then often seen by many , detrimental to the UK as a whole?

Agriculture is a devolved matter, so the programme I'm leading relates to England and the devolved administrations each have their own approach - I'm not able to comment in any detail on that I'm afraid as it's completely outside my remit

 

[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!

I'm just going through to see which questions we didn't get time to address the other day and answering them. I hope that's helpful and look forward to picking up further questions next time.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

how is income forgone being calculated? Surely it’s very dependant on quality of farm, soil etc ?

my biggest issue with our pilot application so far is many options I really want to do simply don’t cover my REAL income forgone

is there scope for this to change given budget constraints? Sadly it will represent a significant barrier to the extent of our participation if not

Clive - we understand the issue, are working on it and will have more to share on this before the end of the year.

You're right that the actual cost and income foregone depends on the particular circumstances of each farm - we have to trade that off against a need for clear, transparent and clear pricing so we currently set prices based on the average levels. We've been looking at other ways to set prices eg payment by results - the problem is that it's hard to do that on a fair basis that gives farmers the certainty you want about he income you will get from environment schemes (given you can't control the outcomes, even if you take all the required actions in good faith). We're continuing to work on this though to see if we can find a way to make it work.

Meanwhile we have updated the way we do this to make sure that the calculation is fair and reasonable. On that basis, we've already reviewed the prices for the soils standards going into SFI next year - that's resulted in approximately a 30% increase relative to what the prices would have been in CS, which should make it workable for more farmers.

We're now reviewing all prices in CS and new schemes and plan to publish updated payment rates by the end of this year. Follow the programme blog for updates: https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Sorry not to get to your question at the time - I did them in order of votes (or as close to that as I could manage given the votes were ongoing during the hour!) but I'm working through the rest to make sure they all have answers this week

Only on till 8pm mate???

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Is the brexit bonfire of red tape for farmers still happening?

We're:
* designing our new schemes to be more straightforward and less bureaucratic - more info on sustainable farming incentive in November and I hope you'll see when we launch the scheme next year that we've taken seriously the feedback about schemes being too bureaucratic and onerous - you can let me know what you think when we get there, I'll be keen to hear feedback
* improving and simplifying existing schemes - see https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2021/02/09/opening-countryside-stewardship-for-2022-agreements/
* simplifying and improving the way cross-compliance inspections and penalties work - see: https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/20...inspections-and-make-penalties-proportionate/
* working on what the new regulatory system should look like after we delink direct payments (after 2024), to make it fairer, more proportionate and more effective - we'll publish more info on that early next year