Sustainable farming incentive details published today 2 December 2021

[Humble Village Farmer]

I have to say my brain is starting to hurt with all these regulations and carrot dangling, I have been farming a considerable amount of years doing what the gov is telling me to do now, i have no brown soils over winter, the plough is safely tucked away at the back of the shed and only comes out on special occasions. Fert has been cut in half over the last 10 years and sprays also, red and white clovers have replaced fast growing rye grass. Now i,m being told i can,t spread mature and well rotted cattle muck onto DRY autumn ground for winter wheat. What do i do Janet, order some more expensive fert instead. When is the best time to spread? because it,s not in the spring when the water table is high from the winter. In the summer i want the grass for grazing and not covered in sh#t. Does the Gov know how the Nitrogen cycle works!!! EVERY FARMER knows Autumn is the best time for applying FYM.

I've got to ask, do you spread N fertiliser on your wheat in the spring, when as you say the water table is high from the winter? Or is that best spread onto DRY autumn ground for winter wheat?

 

[poorsheepfarmer]

How exactly are you going to alter SOM on an all pp sheep farm? It is what it is

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

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 ).

Yes and Clive is also advising the MOD on their Nato policy.

 

[neilo]

How exactly are you going to alter SOM on an all pp sheep farm? It is what it is

Your soil tests will show that then. There is no requirement to increase OM levels as it stands currently.

Some of the soil standards require you to ‘add organic matter’, which you are doing whenever you spread muck, or whenever the sheep spread muck as they graze.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

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.

Also the cap was broken. We are better off out.

 

[neilo]

On the level of this complex farce .... I doubt it

Every time there has been a new scheme introduced, it has seemed hugely complicated. We’ve all got used to it pretty quickly though.

Soil tests are to be done every 5 years, and expanded a bit to include OM levels. That’s pretty sound practice anyway, if only to tailor lime & fert applications sensibly.
Introduce some herbal leys to part of the grazing area, as part of your reseeding program (or slot some in if you never reseed).
If you have fields that you never graze, put some OM on somehow at some point (sensible anyway on constantly mown or arable fields).
Don’t leave soil bare all winter, again sensible anyway.

I haven’t seen anything particularly radical or challenging in the standards produced thus far.

 

[neilo]

Also the cap was broken. We are better off out.

Why is it ‘broken’? It continues, albeit with the usual 5 yearly tweaking, for our competitors over the water.

 

[redsloe]

Every time there has been a new scheme introduced, it has seemed hugely complicated. We’ve all got used to it pretty quickly though.

Soil tests are to be done every 5 years, and expanded a bit to include OM levels. That’s pretty sound practice anyway, if only to tailor lime & fert applications sensibly.
Introduce some herbal leys to part of the grazing area, as part of your reseeding program (or slot some in if you never reseed).
If you have fields that you never graze, put some OM on somehow at some point (sensible anyway on constantly mown or arable fields).
Don’t leave soil bare all winter, again sensible anyway.

I haven’t seen anything particularly radical or challenging in the standards produced thus far.

Good post.
I want to include SOM in the soil tests I do but it is more pricey, that's the problem. I think it's more than the £8.50 that's been mentioned on here.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Why is it ‘broken’? It continues, albeit with the usual 5 yearly tweaking, for our competitors over the water.

Ignoring the reverse taxation of using tax money from everyone to redistribute to the wealthiest section of society who own the land, it's allowed farmers to produce and sell stuff without having to make a living. The nice brown envelope gave you enough to live on even if the farming business didn't.

Farmers are already thinking more carefully about the future without it.

 

[Dave645]

Why is it ‘broken’? It continues, albeit with the usual 5 yearly tweaking, for our competitors over the water.

While some of it worked, the fact that some farmers were getting hundreds of thousands each year while farming massive farms was the problem they used this money to buy more land and push out small farmers.
In the past as farmers sold up the land was split between their neighbours each got a small bit next to some of their own, now whole farms are snapped up by one big farmer, with tax payers paying for it.

while the structure and goal was ok the fact there was no cap changed things over time, that actually destroyed the ability of small farms to expand slowly over time.

 

[chipchap]

So, if I employ an agent to help me with my application, how much money will actually be left in my pocket after I have paid all the additional costs?

Very little I suspect, on a medium sized family farm.

 

[neilo]

Good post.
I want to include SOM in the soil tests I do but it is more pricey, that's the problem. I think it's more than the £8.50 that's been mentioned on here.

I expect it will become part of the standard test before long, but I don’t suppose the price will drop.

Janet Hughes has clarified that the testing requirement will be based on an area basis, not field parcels, so it will be interesting to see that level. If it’s one per 5ha, once every 5 years, it’s not going to be particularly onerous. It might be a big chunk in the first year if you’ve not bothered soil testing before though, but it would be sensible to include OM in all routine tests from now on.

 

[Hindsight]

Good post.
I want to include SOM in the soil tests I do but it is more pricey, that's the problem. I think it's more than the £8.50 that's been mentioned on here.

Just looked on website. Hill court farm research charge £7.50 for organic matter per sample. So a portion of fish and chips every few years per parcel of land. And as a revenue expenditure item it goes in the P&L against tax. Hey ho.

 

[Hindsight]

I expect it will become part of the standard test before long, but I don’t suppose the price will drop.

Janet Hughes has clarified that the testing requirement will be based on an area basis, not field parcels, so it will be interesting to see that level. If it’s one per 5ha, once every 5 years, it’s not going to be particularly onerous. It might be a big chunk in the first year if you’ve not bothered soil testing before though, but it would be sensible to include OM in all routine tests from now on.

Your posts this morning are sense of reason. Careful. Conspiracy and a healthy anti DEFRA stance is only way to ’stay with the gang’

 

[neilo]

While some of it worked, the fact that some farmers were getting hundreds of thousands each year while farming massive farms was the problem they used this money to buy more land and push out small farmers.
In the past as farmers sold up the land was split between their neighbours each got a small bit next to some of their own, now whole farms are snapped up by one big farmer, with tax payers paying for it.

while the structure and goal was ok the fact there was no cap changed things over time, that actually destroyed the ability of small farms to expand slowly over time.

Our government chose not to implement a cap, it was always an option. Wales chose to implement a ‘redistributive payment’, where the money was diverted from the general pot in order to increase the rate on the first 53(?) ha.

It’s not a fault of the CAP, just of UK government choosing to look after the big landowners.

 

[Hindsight]

While some of it worked, the fact that some farmers were getting hundreds of thousands each year while farming massive farms was the problem they used this money to buy more land and push out small farmers.
In the past as farmers sold up the land was split between their neighbours each got a small bit next to some of their own, now whole farms are snapped up by one big farmer, with tax payers paying for it.

while the structure and goal was ok the fact there was no cap changed things over time, that actually destroyed the ability of small farms to expand slowly over time.

our government had opportunity to impose staged payments and to cap individual payments. the EU directive included provision for membe states to enact such policies. so many lies about EU and CAP. Control was always there.

 

[Hindsight]

Our government chose not to implement a cap, it was always an option. Wales chose to implement a ‘redistributive payment’, where the money was diverted from the general pot in order to increase the rate on the first 53(?) ha.

It’s not a fault of the CAP, just of UK government choosing to look after the big landowners.

You beat me to it.

 

[Om352]

Soil health, muck, worms, little or no fert. My plan is to keep spreading the sh#t on the land, and i don,t need a test for that.

 

[Dave645]

Our government chose not to implement a cap, it was always an option. Wales chose to implement a ‘redistributive payment’, where the money was diverted from the general pot in order to increase the rate on the first 53(?) ha.

It’s not a fault of the CAP, just of UK government choosing to look after the big landowners.

It’s a pity the green brigade got hold of the pot, because a simple system like that would have transformed farming and let new entrants come in.

 

[neilo]

Ignoring the reverse taxation of using tax money from everyone to redistribute to the wealthiest section of society who own the land, it's allowed farmers to produce and sell stuff without having to make a living. The nice brown envelope gave you enough to live on even if the farming business didn't.

Farmers are already thinking more carefully about the future without it.

Without support, those smaller ‘inefficient’ farms quickly become unviable. That will be most upland farms, as well as those smaller mixed units that maybe have too much labour (according to the efficiency textbook), supporting families remaining in rural communities, populating those schools, keeping rural support industries going, etc, etc.

If we are driven to the efficiency that we are constantly told NZ displays, where one person looks after 3500-4000 ewes, that equates to something like one family on every 2000ac across upland pastoral areas. Is that good, or an abandoned landscape?