Sustainable Farming Incentive: how the scheme will work in 2022

Sustainable farming incentive details published today 2 December 2021

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serf

Member
Location
warwickshire
Or is this to incentivise us to spread more water companies waste?
Screenshot_20211203-221807_DuckDuckGo.jpg
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I actually think you’re not far out on this . @Clive and co have Janet wrapped around their little fingers .
They forget that us mixed farmers have been applying manures, rotating grass etc for generations and don’t need Defra to tell us how to manage our soils( or souls as spellchecker rather aptly suggests ).

My reading of the document is that you are already ‘applying OM’ through spreading muck, rotating grass and growing catch crops.👍
I wouldn’t get too excited about Clive’s bonanza at this stage, that comes with later rollouts, when they are saying they will be rewarding DD, etc.
 

Vader

Member
Mixed Farmer
The point is to give farmers information about the health of your soil that you don't get from the tests you're required to do under farming rules for water (although you can do these tests alongside those, and some farmers already do that). This is so that you can decide what to do about it. The actions in the standard should increase your SOM over time, but we won't be using that information to check on you or use the results to deduct money. If they don't rise over time, that might give you useful information to decide what other action to take.
You see i just dont trust this fixation on SOM , especially when for now you don't care what level its at and its upto us if we bother using the info.
Does not sound very good spending of tax payers cash.

Must be a rule change planned after a few years.... 🤔

Do you think farmers dont try and keep healthy soils already?
Our income does rely on it....
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I bet our lord and master here on TFF is behind this soils standard being the first one that is rolled out, no coincidence that it fits his farming methods perfectly.........what it is to have friends in high places. £58/ha over a few 1000 acres should pay for another sports car I expect. The direct drilling god giveth CO2 savings, and the Porsche Owners club taketh them away again........ I fully expect the next SFI standard to be a special annual payment for all Fendt owners, based on the amount of fuel they create from unicorn farts. If the final one is a payment for anyone who isn't a member of the NFU we'll definitely know who has been writing the SFI rule book :whistle: :whistle:

Farming in Wales, this scheme doesn’t apply to me. However, as one of those horribly inefficient mixed farmers, I wouldn’t be too upset with this scheme as a transition from BPS to the brave new world. We could meet most of it now, or with very little tweaking of our system.
It could have been a lot worse tbh.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Yep looks that way , box ticked ✅...
Next trees worth of paperwork to wade thru ....

Hasn’t wading through paperwork been a requisite of every support scheme in the last couple of decades? It’s just that HMG have changed the required paperwork again.
It will likely still pay a better hourly rate than most other things you can do on a farm?
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
As long as the matter is not the subject of an NE or RPA Inspectors personal interpretation....

Our (your) DEFRA representative (& Useless, on a FG podcast interview) has said that will be changing. We will be helped to rectify minor discrepancies, rather than incur the draconian penalties that EU (boo, hiss :rolleyes: ) regulations stipulated.
 

Vader

Member
Mixed Farmer
We're not gathering the data from the tests and have no intention of using it in that way.

Yes, there are measurable outcomes from winter cover, organic matter and green cover. Also, assuming by 2028 the soil standards cover 50% to 70% of eligible agricultural soil in England, this could save approximately 330 to 460 thousand tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2028.
Meanwhile uk aviation kicks out 39 mega tons a year....
Sort of makes your 'could save approximately ' thingy a bit pointless...?

Plus if you stopped listening to the vegan brigade, then might realise that things like beef farming don't produce as much co2 as you think, methane cycle....
 

serf

Member
Location
warwickshire
Hasn’t wading through paperwork been a requisite of every support scheme in the last couple of decades? It’s just that HMG have changed the required paperwork again.
It will likely still pay a better hourly rate than most other things you can do on a farm?
On the level of this complex farce .... I doubt it
 

delilah

Member
Isn't this whole thing just a complex garble that is going to take billions in administration either gov or mustard cords ... wouldn't it just be a whole lot easier and economic to give every acre 60 quid ....
Now if only someone had thought of that before 🤣

For purely political reasons, that can't happen. ELMS has to be seen to be very different from what has gone before, otherwise what was the point of breaking away from the EU ? That isn't to say that you are wrong in pointing out that current proposals are hopelessly over complex. The SFI has to be sufficiently simple that the smallest of farms can cope with the paperwork and the expenditure by Defra on admin is minimal.
All these various threads on here are doing is helping Defra to find that sweet spot, whereby the SFI is radical yet simple. They will get there.
 

Stw88

Member
Location
Northumberland
For purely political reasons, that can't happen. ELMS has to be seen to be very different from what has gone before, otherwise what was the point of breaking away from the EU ? That isn't to say that you are wrong in pointing out that current proposals are hopelessly over complex. The SFI has to be sufficiently simple that the smallest of farms can cope with the paperwork and the expenditure by Defra on admin is minimal.
All these various threads on here are doing is helping Defra to find that sweet spot, whereby the SFI is radical yet simple. They will get there.
It doesn’t sound very simple to me! I don’t think one of the main reasons we broke away from the EU was to change farm subsidies.
 

delilah

Member
It doesn’t sound very simple to me! I don’t think one of the main reasons we broke away from the EU was to change farm subsidies.

I did say they will get there, I didn't say they were there yet :ROFLMAO: .

edit: re the EU, for sure, it may not have been why we left, but you will regularly hear the farming ministers starting their statements on ELMS along the lines of "now we are out of the EU we can do things differently....". Hence it has to be seen to be different.
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 43.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.4%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.4%
  • 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

  • 1,287
  • 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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