New limits to SFI.

[Hindsight]

it was probably the 1% that lobbied hard for the scheme to be designed like this originally. They have got their contracts sorted now, they have got their way.
to everyone else.

Well no actually if my experience is anything to go by!. I have been to farms which have placed all there land into one or more of these 6 actions. But they have been small farms of 11 to 45 hectares. Not landed gentry estates. Just older retired farmers - tenants in two cases. Never dreamed of such action until the Guidelines were published last July and then amended to be even more favourable in August.

Most of the rest where around 20 - 30% of land has been entered into one of the options is where crops have failed and land is wet and have taken advantage of the SFI Lifeboat with every intention of reducing this by 50% from the Autumn when they will go back to cropping Or will drop Oilseed Rape and other Break Crops. Again very logical agronomic and financial reasons. It is this market price influence which Defra do not seem to acknowledge. Hey ho.

 

[willyorkshire]

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 ??

Anything already accepted remains in place. Imagine the law suits if not!

 

[stroller]

No situation is so dire that government interference can't f**k it up completely

 

[ffukedfarmer]

How is it moral that somebody nets say £500 per hectare for bird/rat seed?
All I’ve heard from the public about the schemes is deep anger when they are struggling to make ends meet. The government is slowly waking up to that.

Is it any worse than large estates getting £80 and acre for doing absolutely nothing under BPS? I'm not sure what the solution is for financial support but it was BPS and it isn't SFI.

 

[ffukedfarmer]

Will existing agreements be able to increase areas at their review date? Asking for a friend obviously

 

[L P]

Having a meltdown on X last I heard 🫣

Take heed, look outside the box. Pride before the fall for the almighty one?

 

[MrNoo]

How is it moral that somebody nets say £500 per hectare for bird/rat seed?
All I’ve heard from the public about the schemes is deep anger when they are struggling to make ends meet. The government is slowly waking up to that.

Oh the irony, what has it got to do with morals?? It was offered and a lot have taken the option, thought farmers were businesses. Tesco et all would have zero qualms about getting something for nothing or any other business.

 

[vantage]

Well I got to three pages in and thought that the scheme may now have a 25% limit, so anyone who has planted more than that may still only get the 25% payment. I can see all you guys are seriously in the dark about it.

 

[Huno]

I love the way your posts only appear once they have been vetted . Just how long have you been on the naughty step for ? Must be a round black thing with a hole in the middle.

@Clive holds me personally responsible for Janet and DEFRA's disengagement from TFF because i questioned the propaganda.. I am now a naughty step lifer it seems!

 

[livestock 1]

Sfi is morally wrong for taxpayers

 

[Zippy768]

Will existing agreements be able to increase areas at their review date? Asking for a friend obviously

That's the worry.
Happy I chucked half an hectare of ahl1 in, just in case they pulled the idea of adding options.

 

[Case290]

Sfi is morally wrong for taxpayers

Not what the rpa have been saying

 

[Flatland guy]

Not what the rpa have been saying

Yes but now altering the rules so why alter tactic/strategy?

 

[Billboy1]

i have about 25% ahl2 going in this time as it happens on one field and was seriously thinking about doing the lot looks like a rethink is on the cards , shame it would of been a nice pension but in reality not the right thing morally to do .

 

[warksfarmer]

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?

Totally agree. The IACS system should never of been scrapped. It should be reintroduced at current BPS rates to run along side SFI. So a 100ac farm has 25ac in SFI (mandatory rate should be 10%) and then 75ac producing food bolstered by IACS at around £100/acre.

 

[fudge]

Sfi is morally wrong for taxpayers

Yes. The whole of rural and food policy is dishonest, based as it is, on the misnomers of “net zero” and “land scape recovery” as well as “biodiversity net gain”. People are being asked to pay for the perpetuation of fossil fuel use, the export of food production as well as the continued concreting over of green field sites rather than regeneration of urban areas. Utterly hypocritical to characterise the previous system as “amoral” when this is a scammers paradise.

 

[gone up the hill]

because BPS was utterly imoral frankly and indefensible - no way politically that it could continue

And there is no way Clive that anyone can now defend the Two Tier sub system that has replaced BPS which will severally disadvantage thousands of farmers due to the rules of the scheme being changed overnight without any warning!

And all this whilst many mixed/livestock farms were still waiting for the 60+ grassland options to be released to be able to make an application.

Janet said on here time and time again when asked that ALL farmers would be able to re-coup their lost BPS under the new SFI system, well that is now clearly a lie and not possible under the new SFI scheme let alone the old SFI scheme.

Personally SFI is now a dead duck walking and needs to be scrapped.

 

[fieldfarmer]

Well I got to three pages in and thought that the scheme may now have a 25% limit, so anyone who has planted more than that may still only get the 25% payment. I can see all you guys are seriously in the dark about it.

They printed yesterday that existing agreements will be honoured, not sure on the unlimited uplift in hectares or the maximum 50% drop clause though now even though that was in the signed agreement.

 

[Case290]

my view there options were priced for hole farm acceptance as machinery could be sold reduced now overheads will be all out of kilter have to keep kit and labour for 75% of fields may as well go back to zero big 6 options. Big mistake from sfi Big areas of environmental scheme, make big environmental benefit they were right before now big back track = y the big u turn with only 1 % doing this must be some other reason

 

[Goweresque]

Yes so a large or small farm 25% is a different area .. how can anyone say anymore than 25% won’t make any environmental difference.

Its a very similar situation that was the case with the 3 crop rule under Greening a few years ago. A 1000 acre farmer would have a larger bloc of his 3rd crop than a 100 acre one would of his main crop.