Sustainable Farming Incentive Deadline Looming

Jon 2166

Member
Arable Farmer
No it just doesn’t stack up. We spent the best part of a day going through it and from an arable point of view, it’s pointless. They’ve got it very wrong in my view and even if they doubled the rates it’s still questionable.
Yes, way off. The last nail in the coffin for us was the percentage all round wild bird feed. Money needs to be tripled to look anything like attractive but that is not the only problem. It is too inflexible. Our min-till trials at home have thrown up a whole bunch of problems as well as a few successes. The plough will be coming out of the shed to help correct these. We will carry on experimenting until we have a system but I can do it my way on my land as conditions dictate.
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
Of the manifold flaws in the SFI as it currently stands, the attempt to subsidize one form of crop establishment over others stands out as the greatest flaw of all.
I wouldn’t say it’s that it’s the total inflexibility getting to the different tiers. As I said earlier if we don’t keep our ditches and outfall flowing we knock 4-5t/ha of our yields but it’s mandatory to get to advanced. Everything else we can do relatively easily. So this one inflexibility screws the whole scheme as I am not doing basic for such a small payment.
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
I wouldn’t say it’s that it’s the total inflexibility getting to the different tiers. As I said earlier if we don’t keep our ditches and outfall flowing we knock 4-5t/ha of our yields but it’s mandatory to get to advanced. Everything else we can do relatively easily. So this one inflexibility screws the whole scheme as I am not doing basic for such a small payment.
That's right (about the ditches). And if the ditch takes the neighbours water, then you've got to maintain it, meaning yoy can't access advanced. I'll thought out scheme.

Also, as said by another poster, inflexibility would stop many pledging min-till, DD etc. Even on a proportion of their land. Flexibility of cultivation strategy, cropping, working with the weather and season etc. is important for many farmers and cropping choices.

I'm far from saying there's anything with DD if it suits your farm and cropping, but not much use if you're an intensive salad, veg or potato grower. So DEFRA are penalising people who grow our 5 veg a day (by essentially preventing them from getting the highest SFI payments). And giving incentives to DD farmers who tend to only grow cereals, and usually include spring malting barley to help with grass weeds, so incentivising alcohol production (gives off CO2) and consumption. I'm probably being a little facetious, but do think DEFRA might have a rose tinted view of some things.

Friend of mine DD'd into non-ideal conditions last Autumn, and got 1.5t/acre wheat, using plenty of slug pellets. In those conditions it might have been better to plough.
 

Jon 2166

Member
Arable Farmer
Just had a quick read. Interesting reading! How to put a good slant on a poor set of figures. Around 140 arable and horticultural businesses. I can see the grassland options proving more popular, which they are!
 

delilah

Member
Stand out figure for me is that most of the applications are from the largest holdings. As has been said on here countless times, the complexity of the SFI in its current form makes it a land agents wet dream. It will accelerate the loss of critical mass in UK ag far more than any previous form of support, which is reason in itself to take it back to the drawing board.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Stand out figure for me is that most of the applications are from the largest holdings. As has been said on here countless times, the complexity of the SFI in its current form makes it a land agents wet dream. It will accelerate the loss of critical mass in UK ag far more than any previous form of support, which is reason in itself to take it back to the drawing board.
You're not supposed to notice..... ;)
 

Jon 2166

Member
Arable Farmer
Yes,
The larger farms can experiment much more than a farm our size. I haven’t seen a figure but would be interesting to know what level everyone has plumped for and what percentage of the farm has been put in? I wonder how many will wish they hadn’t in a years time?
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yes,
The larger farms can experiment much more than a farm our size. I haven’t seen a figure but would be interesting to know what level everyone has plumped for and what percentage of the farm has been put in? I wonder how many will wish they hadn’t in a years time?

Not one mention of organic.

Raises massive concerns for me.
And no breakdown of the ambition levels and range of standards that folk have opted for. With only a few hundred maximum in each category of farms (or only 7 in pigs) then it could be that some of the combinations of standard and ambition levels have had few or no takers....
 

Matt

Member
Just had a quick read. Interesting reading! How to put a good slant on a poor set of figures. Around 140 arable and horticultural businesses. I can see the grassland options proving more popular, which they are!
Shame that they claim one of the uses for grass they claim to produce sooooo much green house gases. 🤦🏼‍♂️🙈
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Yes,
The larger farms can experiment much more than a farm our size. I haven’t seen a figure but would be interesting to know what level everyone has plumped for and what percentage of the farm has been put in? I wonder how many will wish they hadn’t in a years time?

That to me was a question to which the answer will be interesting...

The pilot agreements will last for 3 years. We hope the farmers who have applied will stay with us all the way through to 2024.

I wonder...
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Stand out figure for me is that most of the applications are from the largest holdings. As has been said on here countless times, the complexity of the SFI in its current form makes it a land agents wet dream. It will accelerate the loss of critical mass in UK ag far more than any previous form of support, which is reason in itself to take it back to the drawing board.
Well, as you have oft said, the final version of SFI will be very different from that first trialled.

Happily, I am out until they launch in 24/5 anyway...
 

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
That to me was a question to which the answer will be interesting...

The pilot agreements will last for 3 years. We hope the farmers who have applied will stay with us all the way through to 2024.

I wonder...
The payment of £5K appeared to me to be for one year yet the pilot runs for 3 years. I have yet to read through the agreement but already I am thinking thanks but no thanks, @Janet Hughes Defra
 

Jon 2166

Member
Arable Farmer
Really the 5k payment should be ignored in the long term decision making process as it is only relevant to the pilot, regardless of it’s duration in the pilot. I must say I at least expected it to run for the duration of the pilot? Even more disappointing.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 35.1%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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

  • 1,292
  • 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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