New information about local nature recovery and landscape recovery

[ajd132]

So you agree, thanks

In most cases it gets back to the land owner but as I said nothing is 100%

 

[BrianV]

That's the whole point. If we carry on burning carbon and it all goes tits up, the climate might not be suitable for growing food so easily.

Maybe if the government put a small proportion of the money being wasted on eco daydreams into making public transport far more accessible we might then believe what we are being told, instead we have one of the most expensive restrictive public transport systems in Europe so where is the joined up thinking!

 

[DRC]

It gets back to the land owner generally. You either have a cfa so there land owner can be an ‘active farmer’ for tax reasons and that keeps the bps basically as their first charge, or you do an FBT where the land owner takes no risk and the tenant takes the bps but the value of that is built into the rent. Bps is part of the earning potential of the land, just like carbon/elms,natural capital etc.
(unless you are on an old aha tenancy)

No one forces you guys to pay it though

 

[ajd132]

No one forces you guys to pay it though

I wasn’t complaining. I was just stating that the bps adds a certain amount to the earning potential of the land so affects the value of rents.

 

[Two Tone]

What is wrong is that English taxpayers subsidise Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland & those subsidies are now being used to undercut & disadvantage English farmers, this is not what the vast majority of English taxpayers expect their taxes to be used for, a relatively small minority of eco zealots now have an undue influence on this countries future!

And we are supposed to be a UNITED KINGDOM!
Once ELMs starts, as far as farming goes, it won’t be any more.

I don’t know if Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have suffered the 2021 BPS reductions the same as we have in England.
I suspect not and If they haven’t, then it already isn’t a UK, is it?

Not that I wish any of the 4 Nations to suffer at all.

 

[BrianV]

And we are supposed to be a UNITED KINGDOM!
Once ELMs starts, as far as farming goes, it won’t be any more.

I don’t know if Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have suffered the 2021 BPS reductions the same as we have in England.
I suspect not and If they haven’t, then it already isn’t a UK, is it?

Not that I wish any of the 4 Nations to suffer at all.

The other three are keeping their's pretty much as is for the next few years whilst they watch England's balls up unfold!

 

[Poorbuthappy]

That doesn't address my point.

Indeed, but my point is that neither are the government with schemes that are just greenwashing.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Indeed, but my point is that neither are the government with schemes that are just greenwashing.

I don't agree. The aims as I understand them are to improve farming practices and increase biodiversity.

 

[Wombat]

And we are supposed to be a UNITED KINGDOM!
Once ELMs starts, as far as farming goes, it won’t be any more.

I don’t know if Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland have suffered the 2021 BPS reductions the same as we have in England.
I suspect not and If they haven’t, then it already isn’t a UK, is it?

Not that I wish any of the 4 Nations to suffer at all.

As far as I am aware all the devolved governments have said no cuts this year and I am sure some had said till 2024

 

[Jackov Altraids]

I don't agree. The aims as I understand them are to improve farming practices and increase biodiversity.

I think that is what most of us were led to believe.

This is the basis of it all.

• creating or restoring 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside the protected site network, focusing on priority habitats as part of a wider set of land management changes providing extensive benefits
• taking action to recover threatened, iconic or economically important species of animals, plants and fungi, and where possible to prevent human induced extinction or loss of known threatened species in England and the Overseas Territories
• increasing woodland in England in line with our aspiration of 12% cover by 2060: this would involve planting 180,000 hectares by end of 2042

Defra seem to have completely lost sight of any sustainability and ignored any dual use of land as being farmed and wildlife-rich.
So you can claim money or farm. I don't think they are encouraging anyone to do both which completely misses the chance to achieve a positive result for everyone/everything.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

I think that is what most of us were led to believe.

This is the basis of it all.

• creating or restoring 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside the protected site network, focusing on priority habitats as part of a wider set of land management changes providing extensive benefits
• taking action to recover threatened, iconic or economically important species of animals, plants and fungi, and where possible to prevent human induced extinction or loss of known threatened species in England and the Overseas Territories
• increasing woodland in England in line with our aspiration of 12% cover by 2060: this would involve planting 180,000 hectares by end of 2042

Defra seem to have completely lost sight of any sustainability and ignored any dual use of land as being farmed and wildlife-rich.
So you can claim money or farm. I don't think they are encouraging anyone to do both which completely misses the chance to achieve a positive result for everyone/everything.

Prove them wrong if that's what you think.

They could have just cut the subsidies entirely but there is a new scheme with different rules instead.

I am intending to claim money and farm, but quite honestly I'm not very comfortable taking benefits when I don't need them. I didn't get where I am today by turning money down though!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Ok your scaring me now.
https://cieem.net/ne-biodiversity-credits-scheme/

first carbon credits, how have they any value?
Unless a farm is carbon negative and actively locking up carbon in a long term and ongoing way, (trees) how is there anything to sell, If I took an option to increase soil carbon levels, and I did so for a few years after calculating my farm is net zero before that then maybe I can lock some carbon at some point that will max out how is that able to be sold in any meaningful way? Why would any environmentally goal driven person or agency encourage their sale. The fact that if DEFRA see field options as carbon capture, that then are worth credits, is scary.
There is no long term extra income from locking up carbon in in crop actions after a point carbon maxes out and you have nothing to sell.

these bio credits again a joke, I put some bio diversity in, sell the credits. what the scheme says it’s a developer buying credits to offset bio lost from development, who polices this stuff if I rip the bio diversity out do I hand the money back? If the developer wants to pay an annual fee, so I maintain it long term, and cope with the long term loss of income, what happens when the developer goes bust or stops paying?

Where is the bio diversity then, as basically I then look to sell it to someone else, and the loss of bio D the first company payed for is just lost, at best this is just a new form of green washing. . .

Overall I agree.

I do think carbon CAN be stored robustly in farmed soils though, just not in the top 30cm or so. That zone is "labile" carbon and only stable if the management continues and the weather plays fair.

As for carbon increases reaching a plateau, woodland is no different IMHO. If it is unharvested then fast species could plateau within 30 years. Some hardwood species may take 300. Neither is exactly a long term solution unless fossil fuel emissions are cut DEEPLY and QUICKLY as well (a point made repeatedly by the IPCC reports and ignored by all politicians because it is so inconvenient).

Harvested timber relies totally on the way it is managed, both in the growing and the use, to be part of the solution rather than the problem. Again, ignored by all politicians because it is so inconvenient. If it's used as biomass then it's no help in addressing existing atmospheric CO2 levels unless allied to CCS which, so far at least, is a unicorn. CCUS is massively uneconomic and so the only realistic customer is the public purse. CCUS (where the captured carbon is sold for commercial use - to create aviation fuel for example) - IS economically viable but does nothing to reduce existing atmospheric CO2 concentrations (and their "baked in" ongoing rise for around 10 years).

ANY carbon scheme which does not fully address these points is a scam, albeit possibly a legal one.

Biodiversity offsetting is a useful idea by contast. Whether it actually delivers depends totally on how it is regulated and delivered. The gain on the offset site MUST be permanent else is a con trick. Developers are not going to accept annual payments for it. That doesn't fit their business model of Borrow funds - Develop site - Sell for profit paying off debt - Walk away clean to do next project. It IS possible to pay a lump sum instead but only if the future income is converted to a "net present value" which can only be done if 1) the payments are for a known limited period and 2) future inflation rate is known for every year. That means the annual payment MUST be for a limited time only.

There's a common theme here with LNR & LR: Permanent land use change in return for payment over a limited period. Personally I think that is fundamentally unrealistic.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Overall I agree.

I do think carbon CAN be stored robustly in farmed soils though, just not in the top 30cm or so. That zone is "labile" carbon and only stable if the management continues and the weather plays fair.

As for carbon increases reaching a plateau, woodland is no different IMHO. If it is unharvested then fast species could plateau within 30 years. Some hardwood species may take 300. Neither is exactly a long term solution unless fossil fuel emissions are cut DEEPLY and QUICKLY as well (a point made repeatedly by the IPCC reports and ignored by all politicians because it is so inconvenient).

Harvested timber relies totally on the way it is managed, both in the growing and the use, to be part of the solution rather than the problem. Again, ignored by all politicians because it is so inconvenient. If its used as biomass then it's no help in addressing existing atmospheric CO2 levels unless allied to CCS which, so far at least, is a unicorn. It's massively uneconomic and so the only real realistic customer is the public purse. CCUS (where the captured carbon is sold for commercial use - to create aviation fuel for example - IS economically viable but does nothing to reduce existing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and their "baked in" ongoing rise for around 10 years).

ANY carbon scheme which does not fully address these points is a scam, albeit possibly a legal one.

Biodiversity offsetting is a useful idea by contast. Whether it actually delivers depends totally on how it is regulated and delivered. The gain on the offset site MUST be permanent else is a con trick. Developers are not going to accept annual payments for it. That doesn't fit their business model of Borrow funds - Develop site - Sell for profit paying off debt - Walk away clean to do next project. It IS possible to pay a lump sum instead but only if the future income is converted to a "meet present value" which can only be done if 1) the payments are for a known limited period and 2) future inflation rate is known for every year. That means the annual payment MUST be for a limited time only.

There's a common theme here with LNR & LR: Permanent land use change in return for payment over a limited period. Personally I think that is fundamentally unrealistic.

Or they pay a lump sum for the land manager to do or not do certain things thereafter.

 

[Jackov Altraids]

Prove them wrong if that's what you think.

They could have just cut the subsidies entirely but there is a new scheme with different rules instead.

I am intending to claim money and farm, but quite honestly I'm not very comfortable taking benefits when I don't need them. I didn't get where I am today by turning money down though!

Prove what to whom?

They are cutting subsidies entirely.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

I don't agree. The aims as I understand them are to improve farming practices and increase biodiversity.

I was referring to the policy of taking land out of production and rewilding.
Not even just with LR, but with the whole carbon credits farce and investment firms buying up land to plant trees/ rewild for "offsetting"

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Overall I agree.

I do think carbon CAN be stored robustly in farmed soils though, just not in the top 30cm or so. That zone is "labile" carbon and only stable if the management continues and the weather plays fair.

As for carbon increases reaching a plateau, woodland is no different IMHO. If it is unharvested then fast species could plateau within 30 years. Some hardwood species may take 300. Neither is exactly a long term solution unless fossil fuel emissions are cut DEEPLY and QUICKLY as well (a point made repeatedly by the IPCC reports and ignored by all politicians because it is so inconvenient).

Harvested timber relies totally on the way it is managed, both in the growing and the use, to be part of the solution rather than the problem. Again, ignored by all politicians because it is so inconvenient. If it's used as biomass then it's no help in addressing existing atmospheric CO2 levels unless allied to CCS which, so far at least, is a unicorn. CCUS is massively uneconomic and so the only realistic customer is the public purse. CCUS (where the captured carbon is sold for commercial use - to create aviation fuel for example) - IS economically viable but does nothing to reduce existing atmospheric CO2 concentrations (and their "baked in" ongoing rise for around 10 years).

ANY carbon scheme which does not fully address these points is a scam, albeit possibly a legal one.

Biodiversity offsetting is a useful idea by contast. Whether it actually delivers depends totally on how it is regulated and delivered. The gain on the offset site MUST be permanent else is a con trick. Developers are not going to accept annual payments for it. That doesn't fit their business model of Borrow funds - Develop site - Sell for profit paying off debt - Walk away clean to do next project. It IS possible to pay a lump sum instead but only if the future income is converted to a "net present value" which can only be done if 1) the payments are for a known limited period and 2) future inflation rate is known for every year. That means the annual payment MUST be for a limited time only.

There's a common theme here with LNR & LR: Permanent land use change in return for payment over a limited period. Personally I think that is fundamentally unrealistic.

The other issue with biodiversity offsetting is how the biodiversity is calculated.

Developers are already manipulating the calculation of the existing site biodiversity to minimise the need to offset. The process will only be as good as the local authority planning team staff who assess and approve the developer's submitted calculations, something virtually no local planning teams have any competence to do so far it appears. (Any thoughts on this @George from SJM Planning ?).

At the moment they are supposed to use the DEFRA biodiversity metric but it can be easily manipulated I'm told by a friend who's a skilled ecologist.

Calculate biodiversity value with the statutory biodiversity metric

When and how to measure a habitat or development’s impact on biodiversity.

www.gov.uk

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

I was referring to the policy of taking land out of production and rewilding.
Not even just with LR, but with the whole carbon credits farce and investment firms buying up land to plant trees/ rewild for "offsetting"

Not all the elms options involve taking land out of production, most of them don't. And investment firms will only buy land if farmers sell out the opportunity to benefit from these various schemes themselves.

 

[devonbeef]

Hi @Janet Hughes Defra

I find the word recovery in the name of both schemes very insulting to land managers. Recover from what? Decades of government redtape and control? Your impying that all land eligible is in a poor state and needs to be repaired yet it'll have been managed within government scheme rules.
You want farmers to join these schemes but you've already put them down in the scheme title.
I'm sure you could think of a better title for LNR and you can dump LR.

This point is so true, totally insulting to most of us, The damage to the countryside i see is the huge development happening everywhere.

 

[renewablejohn]

This point is so true, totally insulting to most of us, The damage to the countryside i see is the huge development happening everywhere.

Why do you think it is only England with the recovery scheme. I fear someone in DEFRA has come up with a cost reduction scheme for HS2. All the damaged land of HS2 needs to be recovered and now there is a big farming pot of money which can be raided annually to repair that damage. Win Win situation you reduce the perceived cost of HS2 and you end up with an environmental corrider through the country which those pesky farmers cannot do anything about as you have already compulsory purchased their land for peanuts.

 

[NFI]

Janet this has now gone beyond a joke, your so called simplified scheme is now the most complicated agricultural scheme that has been devised anywhere in the world, no other country on earth has more than 240 different options in a simplified scheme.
Defra are in serious danger of becoming a prime example of what goes wrong when government departments get over ambitious & public money ends up being squandered!

Seriously ?
We're going from bps and cs to 240 different options ?
How many numpties dreamed this up ?
More importantly, how do we choose the right ones to suit our farms and businesses whilst our costs spiral out of control and the current support system carries on dropping ?