New information about local nature recovery and landscape recovery

Morning all and happy new year.

Further to the information we published about the Sustainable Farming Incentive in December (see https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ng-incentive-how-the-scheme-will-work-in-2022), today we're publishing information about the 2 other new schemes: local nature recovery and landscape recovery.

These 3 schemes together will give farmers a range of ways to get paid to produce public goods alongside agricultural produce on their land.

We'll also very shortly be publishing the results of our review of payment rates for Countryside Stewardship.

I'll share links to the info here as soon as they're live, and I'll be online here and over on Twitter (where I am @janethughes) to answer your questions. I look forward to your questions and discussion, as ever :)

Update:

Here is a document that sets out a bit more about the environmental and climate outcomes we're seeking to achieve, alongside food production: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environmental-land-management-schemes-outcomes

Here is a document about how the new local nature recovery scheme will work: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...-more-information-on-how-the-scheme-will-work

Here is a document about the first round of landscape recovery projects: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...-more-information-on-how-the-scheme-will-work

Here is a list of payment rates for Countryside Stewardship agreements, following a review last year https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...hip-revenue-payment-rates-from-1-january-2022 - the increased rates will apply to all agreement holders, regardless of when their agreement started. There is a small number of decreases - these will only apply to new agreement holders, from January 2023.

Update: here's a transcript of the speech made by the Secretary of State at Oxford Farming Conference this morning: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...rates-for-revenue-options-from-1-january-2022
 
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Question - Which does Defra consider more important, public goods or feeding the people of the UK?
We think both are important, and that we can and must have both.

There are plenty of things farmers can do to make their farms both more efficient and also more environment and climate friendly, and plenty of examples of farmers who are already doing that. For example: smarter use of fertilisers, taking care of soil health, managing pests in an integrated way, sparing areas of less productive bits of land for nature and water - all of these things can be beneficial for both farm productivity and for the environment and climate.

Of course, how you do this depends on your particular farm setting and the choices you want to make for your business - we're designing the new schemes so that there is something for everyone whether you're a small or large farm, owner or tenant, whatever your business model and farm type, and whatever your particular preferences.
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
@Janet Hughes Defra
Nowhere in any of the papers in your links can I find any reference to how the success of any of these schemes will be measured.
While the aspirations of the various schemes might make good reading what are the baselines against which any public good will be demonstrated?
I have grave concerns as a tax payer that there are no measurable outcomes otherwise DEFRA would have been specific. Surely the principle that if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it applies in this case!
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Lol. All this £££ is going straight to the rspb or similar, or one or two minted landowning eco nutjobs.

Seriously, they'll make this so tricky for your average lowland farmer to apply for, then when none do they will say "ah well we offered you X but noone applied so clearly didn't need it".

Enjoy your 500ha being covered with picnicking (littering) or dogwalking (sh!t leaving, wildlife chasing) members of the general public.
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
Extract from one
"restoring England’s streams and rivers: improving water quality, biodiversity and adapting to climate change – these projects could restore water bodies, rivers, and floodplains to a more natural state, reduce nutrient pollution, benefit aquatic species, and improve flood mitigation and resilience to climate change"

Yet you're allowing water Co's to discharge sewage into water courses??? How much profit do these water Co's make?? And yet we are tasked with making things better for peanuts.
Everything I have read re all these various overly complicated schemes just points at more paperwork for very little return. I do wonder if that is the aim, offer peanuts, we all say no thanks and then you turn round and say we've offered, job done.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Extract from one
"restoring England’s streams and rivers: improving water quality, biodiversity and adapting to climate change – these projects could restore water bodies, rivers, and floodplains to a more natural state, reduce nutrient pollution, benefit aquatic species, and improve flood mitigation and resilience to climate change"

Yet you're allowing water Co's to discharge sewage into water courses??? How much profit do these water Co's make?? And yet we are tasked with making things better for peanuts.
Everything I have read re all these various overly complicated schemes just points at more paperwork for very little return. I do wonder if that is the aim, offer peanuts, we all say no thanks and then you turn round and say we've offered, job done.
They have an effective lobby, and clearly defined career paths (sorry consultancy roles) for politicians and civil servants on their dotage.
 
@Janet Hughes Defra
Nowhere in any of the papers in your links can I find any reference to how the success of any of these schemes will be measured.
While the aspirations of the various schemes might make good reading what are the baselines against which any public good will be demonstrated?
I have grave concerns as a tax payer that there are no measurable outcomes otherwise DEFRA would have been specific. Surely the principle that if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it applies in this case!
This is really important, and we are doing a lot of detailed work on it, we've just not covered it in these documents which are focused on what the schemes are for and how they'll work.

We'll have a full monitoring and evaluation programme in place to assess the impacts of the schemes, and we'll publish the results as we go so that everyone can see how we're getting on / what value we are seeing from the investment overall. We're also making sure that everything we pay for in schemes is properly backed up with scientific evidence about the likely impacts, so we can be confident that the investment will lead to the outcomes we want to see.
 

Bignor Farmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
West Sussex
Local Nature Recovery reads like the current Countryside Stewardship Scheme with a few more options. Are we really going to end up with farmers having two lots of Pollen & Nectar plots on their farm, one for SFI and the next for Nature Recovery? Seems like administrative madness.

I have an SFI pilot scheme and I’ve avoided all watercourse options because I was going to end up with grass or floral margins all over the farm but with x metres for land standard, x meters for hedgerow standard and x meters for watercourse standard potentially in the same field. Overly complicated in my opinion.
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
We were assured at the start of ELMS that it would not just be a scheme to reward failure, ie paying money to people who had not been farming in an environmentally friendly way to change their ways, while ignoring those who had been doing all the desired actions voluntarily.

I see little evidence in any of the descriptions of the LNR or LR schemes that existing environmental landscapes or features will be rewarded, just lots of references to creating and restoring new environmental features.

Am I mistaken @Janet Hughes Defra ?
 
We were assured at the start of ELMS that it would not just be a scheme to reward failure, ie paying money to people who had not been farming in an environmentally friendly way to change their ways, while ignoring those who had been doing all the desired actions voluntarily.

I see little evidence in any of the descriptions of the LNR or LR schemes that existing environmental landscapes or features will be rewarded, just lots of references to creating and restoring new environmental features.

Am I mistaken @Janet Hughes Defra ?
We will pay for maintenance of habitats etc, not just creation - sorry if that's not absolutely clear, we'll take that feedback and make sure we make it clearer going forward
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 5 2.7%

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

  • 1,286
  • 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/
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