New limits to SFI.

[Andy26]

That is pointless as anyone who wants to put most or a large % of their land into these options will now plough on and do it before then.

It could actually backfire and they get thousands of applications in before then taking large % of farms out of production.

The new rules either need to apply for all schemes regardless of when they were started or no schemes at all.

Cannot apply retrospectively, if they did what little trust there is would be non existent.

You can still put 100% into Legume Fallow IPM2, so I would think any applications after the start date of the Cap would just use that option.

 

[AndrewM]

Defra announces cap on SFI actions to maintain food production - Farmers Weekly

Defra has responded to industry concerns about food security by announcing a cap on the amount of some environmental incentives farmers in England can

www.fwi.co.uk

from the farmers weekly article, they have interpreted it as:

"New applicants to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme will only be able to put 25% of their land into six SFI actions that take land out of food production."

"Defra says the six actions “were always intended to be implemented on smaller areas of the farm – something the new measures will protect”. The rest of the SFI actions will remain uncapped."

"
To date, Defra has received more than 15,000 SFI applications and issued over 14,000 agreement offers to farmers in England.
The vast majority of land in the SFI scheme continues to produce food.
However, about 1% of farmers that applied to SFI 2023 have applied to put 80% or more of their farm into these six non-productive actions."

 

[farmerm]

You do have wonder why DEfRA never considered something like say a "pilot" program to iron these things out in advance of the rollout... oh wait

 

[lloyd]

Good news proper crops are heading back up in money .
OSR up 8 euros so far today.
Lets face it sfi offers poor value for the general tax paying public.

 

[Two Tone]

I’ve dragged this from another thread.
It is question 3 that I’m wondering about:

Interesting.
Looks like it only effects SFI not CS.

Questions:
1. For those already in SFI, does it retrospectively affect existing SFI agreements?
2. Where we have both CS and SFI agreements, where the total of both exceeds 25%, does that mean that the SFI part of it has to be reduced so that the totals of both do not exceed 25%?

3. Surely, if SFI is now limited in its options so as to try to maintain at least a 60% self-sufficiency with regard English food, does this not now mean that some sort of food production subsidy (such as IACS for specific foods, rather than a BPS all land type) ought to be paid?
IMO it does.

4. Doesn’t this further show the utter incompetence of the Government in employing a scheme that up until now, has not taken any notice of actual food production?

 

[gone up the hill]

Cannot apply retrospectively, if they did what little trust there is would be non existent.

You can still put 100% into Legume Fallow IPM2, so I would think any applications after the start date of the Cap would just use that option.

The problem is that everyone who has not applied will be worse off thru no fault of their own!

Also you cannot have one scheme with one set of rules for some agreements and another set of rules for others for the same scheme/ options.!

Legume Fallow will end up included yet for sure as they have said today further changes are coming

The problem is for mixed farms is that we are still waiting for the 60 odd new grass options to come out sometime this summer before seeing what to apply for.

What they should have done from the start is if a farms SFP was say 30k a year you could claim upto that amount for any options like AHL2 but once that 30k is spent you could not claim for anything else.

 

[Two Tone]

The only land to receive an area payment should be PP. Which is just another way of saying that no cropped land should be able to be entered in its entirety into a scheme.

If they have finally worked that out, then good. Should have feckin listened on day 1.

They haven’t finally worked that out, so the rest of us with arable, can breathe a sigh of relief.

The reason you keep on about PP is for its environmental benefits.
This is about food that ends up on supermarket shelves, including stuff that wasn’t grazed by animals to make that food.

Will the slimy buggers try to include food from all the U.K. in their 60% equation or just English food?
SFI is only for England.

 

[Andy26]

Also you cannot have one scheme with one set of rules for some agreements and another set of rules for others for the same scheme/ options.!

We have that already, Mid Tier agreements are a classic example where different rules, for the same option code, applied to different start years.

So already we have one scheme with different rules, its the day you accept the agreement you accept the rules.

 

[lloyd]

Do Defra have a force majeure get out in the contract ?
ie Could they sight unforseen food security risks due to
uncertainty of a nato conflict?

 

[redsloe]

They don't have a clue what they're doing. What clowns would offer something uncapped when the budget clearly can't sustain uncapped, and also potentially put the country in a food security crisis

Hmm.
6 months ago there wasn't hardly a single farmer interested in SFI on here.
First of all the payments weren't high enough.
Then there wasn't enough options
Then it was too complicated.
Many on here were going to plant wall to wall wheat.
A few wet months and we're falling over ourselves.

Are we any better?

 

[J 1177]

Yep.

We told them they didn't have any way of managing their own DEFRA budget. You're right, they didn't listen.

They should have set a £££ cap on a per ha basis.

Now we've got another unlevel playing field.

They don't have a clue what they're doing. What clowns would offer something uncapped when the budget clearly can't sustain uncapped, and also potentially put the country in a food security crisis.

I think it's totally mismanaged. Not sure if it's the politicians or the civil servants, but now it's a complete mess.

Didnt the great janet also have a hand in a sheep tracing system failure?

 

[delilah]

https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2024/03/25/why-were-putting-area-limits-on-some-sfi-actions/

 

[dave6470]

They cannot do this retrospectively. Can they?

Im sure they will
RHI boiler scheme in Northern Ireland
was changed retrospectively

 

[Bald Rick]

Gives me a frisson of delight to see that Wales are not the only incompetence

Never mind, Rishi “has our backs”

 

[Steevo]

I would really hope not - you can't run a business and make decisions when they can change their mind at a moments notice like that

It's too late to plant cash crops and I have a SFI pollinators eeed on farm bough and paid for ready to drill very soon


there will be farms that have made staff redundant or had farm sales, sign agreemnets with contractors and made equipment purchase decisions based on the agreements they have signed


I cant see how they have any choice but to honour existing agreement, things could get legal even ??

Many on here have been warning that the government are often more than willing and happy to change their mind at the stroke of a pen and that a contract isn't worth the paper it's written on given they can change the rules to suit themselves whenever they wish.

It's true so say that things could get legal......but how many farmers have pockets deep enough to be able to take action against the government who have no limit to their legal budget?!




And after this debacle.....would ANYONE on here really trust the government enough to think they won't change the rules again when it suits them...?

 

[serf]

Many on here have been warning that the government are often more than willing and happy to change their mind at the stroke of a pen and that a contract isn't worth the paper it's written on given they can change the rules to suit themselves whenever they wish.

It's true so say that things could get legal......but how many farmers have pockets deep enough to be able to take action against the government who have no limit to their legal budget?!




And after this debacle.....would ANYONE on here really trust the government enough to think they won't change the rules again when it suits them...?

Change of gov change of rules ....

 

[copse]

Is Janet Hughes from DEFRA still on here????

I see she has a twitter account, I don’t. Perhaps someone can ask her what the hell is going on

I don’t think he is.

 

[Steevo]

Fortunately I haven’t applied for more than 25%. TBH they should have reduced the payment rates. They are just too high on arable ground.

Are they too high?

I mean take a wheat crop - the main arable crop grown in UK.

8t/ha x £200/t = £1600/ha

SFI Wild Bird Mix payment = £860/ha

Turnover yes, not profit.....but it still halves the potential income from each hectare.



I admit there is the potential for a difference in costs between the two.....but I haven't seen any detailed costings to prove one way or another.

 

[onthehoof]

I would really hope not - you can't run a business and make decisions when they can change their mind at a moments notice like that

It's too late to plant cash crops and I have a SFI pollinators eeed on farm bough and paid for ready to drill very soon


there will be farms that have made staff redundant or had farm sales, sign agreemnets with contractors and made equipment purchase decisions based on the agreements they have signed


I cant see how they have any choice but to honour existing agreement, things could get legal even ??

Did you not see this coming?
Didn’t Mark Spencer announce a couple of months ago that they would look at it again

 

[Nearly]

Defra announces cap on SFI actions to maintain food production - Farmers Weekly

Defra has responded to industry concerns about food security by announcing a cap on the amount of some environmental incentives farmers in England can

www.fwi.co.uk

from the farmers weekly article, they have interpreted it as:

"New applicants to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme will only be able to put 25% of their land into six SFI actions that take land out of food production."

"Defra says the six actions “were always intended to be implemented on smaller areas of the farm – something the new measures will protect”. The rest of the SFI actions will remain uncapped."

"
To date, Defra has received more than 15,000 SFI applications and issued over 14,000 agreement offers to farmers in England.
The vast majority of land in the SFI scheme continues to produce food.
However, about 1% of farmers that applied to SFI 2023 have applied to put 80% or more of their farm into these six non-productive actions."

Non productive?
Public money for public good, oh hang on, encouraging wildlife isn't enough now?