Sustainable farming incentive details published today 2 December 2021

[steveR]

But @Janet Hughes Defra insists that this will be simple so that agents/advisors will be irrelevant and the forms can be completed on a Sunday evening after milking …

NOT an Agent but an advisor as seen with STEPS, @silverfox will know what I am on about.... ;-)

Happily no milking is required to be eligible

 

[DRC]

I don’t want a no till subsidy. Genuinely couldn’t care less.
The most interesting farms who I have learnt the most from are small, traditional mixed farms who happen to do no till successfully. It’s arguably where the whole regen movement started. I am saying the those small traditional mixed farms could and should be leading this whole thing.

I think they always have to be honest . Farm like ours was always mixed. 400 acre farm, used to have 150 acres grass, 160 cattle, 150 ewes , some pigs. 4/5 yr leys, 25 acres sugar beet, stubble turnips for sheep. Wheat, barley and a few beans . Plenty of muck in rotation .
It does rankle that you guys think you’ve invented something new , apart from your drilling method

 

[delilah]

Will someone be brave enough to pull the plug on SFI as it stands....? Dunno. Pretty damn sad though if it is the lack of the two 70% targets figures being met, that scuppers it, when a better, simpler scheme could have the mass uptake that is wanted.

How to make SFI work...? Properly funded, and KISS

Yeah, it wont be plug pulled, it will be a speeding up of the amendments that have already taken place.

 

[BrianV]

I disagree, I think small traditional mixed farms could really benefit from this if they stopped focusing all their creative thought on telling everyone why direct drilling doesn’t work

How exactly will small traditional mixed farms do enough things to make it worthwhile to compensate for the production they will inevitably lose, I would have thought the loss of the SFP will hit smaller mixed farms the hardest as their alternatives to make up for the shortfall are severely limited.

 

[BrianV]

I doubt you would get much to grow quicker than wheat at that time of year and for the £18 or £20 bandied about for trying to green it up with something else, I would have thought it was quite an easy decision to make.

Why would I want to plant a green crop under our winter barley which we feed to our own cattle given the risk & possibility that in a wet season it may lodge & the yield be severely reduced?

 

[farmerm]

carbon is carbon - i'm not sure the value of sequestration has anything to do with when the C was released to atmpohere

Scientific fact seem to be the more we can pull it out of our atmosphere the better, how we farm can change help and is a in demand service worthy of reward

Scientific fact is the less we pull from deep underground and put out into the atmosphere the better. Carbon is carbon is the point on which we disagree. When it comes to carbon trading carbon is far from being all equal... there is the carbon for which emissions will come with a carbon trading cost, eg fuel consumed in Western countries and then there are carbon emissions for which no carbon payment shall be made eg deforestation, carbon oxidisation from growing on high OM soils and black market fuels. Most farmers know the benefits of increasing soil carbon, you have been on a journey to increase your soil carbon, a journey which you would continue on with or without carbon payments. In your argument you choose to overlook the reality that globally our above ground carbon emissions from soil oxidisation and deforestation far exceed what is occurring with soil sequestration and tree planting. Unless above ground emissions can be brought into balance with sequestration there can be no capacity for soils to provide a offset service for additional fossil fuel additions. There is of course no carbon money to be made from those felling rainforest, growing veg on peatland or those activities causing desertification, so they get wiped from the equation. I am all for improving soil organic matter both for carbon and agronomic reasons but carbon capture as a "service" offers little more than greenwash. When all carbon offsetting does is offset guilt of Western middle class as they board their flight to Malaga rather than that guilt changing their behaviour then it actually becomes counter productive in the goal of reducing CO2. I am all for improving soil organic matter both for carbon and agronomic reasons but personally I find the concept of monetising it as a "service" in the way it is to be entirely disingenuous.

 

[ajd132]

I think they always have to be honest . Farm like ours was always mixed. 400 acre farm, used to have 150 acres grass, 160 cattle, 150 ewes , some pigs. 4/5 yr leys, 25 acres sugar beet, stubble turnips for sheep. Wheat, barley and a few beans . Plenty of muck in rotation .
It does rankle that you guys think you’ve invented something new , apart from your drilling method

I don’t think that. The more I learn about what we are trying to do the more I realise it’s your kind of system that is the way forward (apart from horrible ploughing and combo drills).

 

[ajd132]

How exactly will small traditional mixed farms do enough things to make it worthwhile to compensate for the production they will inevitably lose, I would have thought the loss of the SFP will hit smaller mixed farms the hardest as their alternatives to make up for the shortfall are severely limited.

I am in the same boat, we are small farm and our diversification is managing land for others. We have zero actual diversification outside of practical farming. We need to make it work in post bps agriculture, all our eggs are in one basket.

 

[Courier]

carbon is carbon - i'm not sure the value of sequestration has anything to do with when the C was released to atmpohere

Scientific fact seem to be the more we can pull it out of our atmosphere the better, how we farm can change help and is a in demand service worthy of reward

I have around 90 acres of crop here which according to industry figures will have sequestered over 1000 tonnes of Co2 and has had NO fert input since it was established but seems to be ineligible for any sort of payment - why bother ?

 

[ajd132]

I have around 90 acres of crop here which according to industry figures will have sequestered over 1000 tonnes of Co2 and has had NO fert input since it was established but seems to be ineligible for any sort of payment - why bother ?

There is ways coming online where you can backdate carbon sequestration through historical satellite data and gain iso acredited certificates you can sell.

 

[farmerm]

We should all remember that the pot of money is not being reduced just distributed with a different system
just have to learn the system

also remember that 100 years ago the government stopped supporting farmers pulling the rug from under them compleetly
the money is still the there as above we just have to learn how to access it
if cropping and farming pays more then get on with cropping and farming

The pot not being reduced is not entirely true...
Firstly inflation is rapidly shrinking the pot in real terms and will continue to do so!
Secondly there are many new, previously not eligible, hands who now have access to the pot, some with very large fingers!
Thirdly items like a £500,000 maximum grants towards irrigation reservoirs restrict access to significant chunks of the pot to very few, very larger businesses!
Fourthly Accessing the pot now comes with significant costs and income forgone that BPS did not

But yes, we have to learnt to adapt.

 

[Courier]

There is ways coming online where you can backdate carbon sequestration through historical satellite data and gain iso acredited certificates you can sell.

Now that sounds interesting

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

To be eligible for the Improved Grassland Standard land must recorded as Permanent Grassland on the Rural Payments system.

We are allowing annual changes to SFI agreements so land can move from one Standard to another to reflect changes in cropping plans over the course of the agreement.

I think I understand now. You mean that our land currently classed as temporary grass, simply because it hasn't been down 5 years yet, would have to be entered into the "Arable soils" standard until it became reclassed as PP. correct?

 

[Hindsight]

NOT an Agent but an advisor as seen with STEPS, @silverfox will know what I am on about.... ;-)

Happily no milking is required to be eligible

Steve - I am only very vaguely familiar with STEPS as that is if I recall a Severn Trent initiative aimed to protect their several small resevoirs in the west midlands and surface drinking water abstration areas. Correct me on that please if wrong. Here in Anglian Water Country no applicable. The adviser you refer to - who employs an pays for that service? And the background of advisers?

 

[ajd132]

The pot not being reduced is not entirely true...
Firstly inflation is rapidly shrinking the pot in real terms and will continue to do so!
Secondly there are many new, previously not eligible, hands who now have access to the pot, some with very large fingers!
Thirdly items like a £500,000 maximum grants towards irrigation reservoirs restrict access to significant chunks of the pot to very few, very larger businesses!
Fourthly Accessing the pot now comes with significant costs and income forgone that BPS did not

But yes, we have to learnt to adapt.

Half a million grant for a resevoir!?

 

[Hindsight]

I think I understand no. You mean that our land currently classed as temporary grass, simply because it hasn't been down 5 years yet, would have to be entered into the "Arable soils" standard until it became reclassed as PP.

That is what Janet's post in effect says.

 

[ajd132]

Now that sounds interesting

It’s coming and stuff is already there, you just need to look beyond the government

 

[Hindsight]

Half a million grant for a resevoir!?

They are expensive things to construct!

 

[farmerm]

Half a million grant for a resevoir!?

Yep!

 

[Courier]

It’s coming and stuff is already there, you just need to look beyond the government

I have to admit to having done a certain amount of looking previously but find difficulty in sorting the serious from the Disney inspired schemes…