What would you say to DEFRA?

[franklin]

I'd say

Pllleeeeeeaaaasseeee stick with one system for a decent amount of time and stop altering it every 5 years.

I'd suggest that if they trusted us a bit more, then they wouldnt need to go through the annual payment charade.

They should consider trying to help us, not spend all their time hitting us with sticks.

 

[Tim W]

1) Work on establishing decent international trade deals
2) Get rid of all direct land based subsidies
3) Invest cash in marketing/R&D
4) Ensure decent returns for public investment into environmental schemes

#1 is the most important

 

[spin cycle]

1) Work on establishing decent international trade deals
2) Get rid of all direct land based subsidies
3) Invest cash in marketing/R&D
4) Ensure decent returns for public investment into environmental schemes

#1 is the most important

so get rid of all subsidies @Tim W ?....or replace with what?

 

[Punch]

Love or Hate land based subsidies they do tick the boxes for WTO.
As for like for like regulation based on sound science it's always a question of who's science! Form the research right and you can almost get any answer you like. Hormone beef and chlorine chickens are safe according to USA. We can't prevent their importing. It becomes a race of economies of scale which UK can't win.
Lot of good suggestions so far. Also think outside the box. (I know I hate that phrase too). Tax breaks on CGT and IHT for genuine farmers releasing control of assets and businesses to younger farmers/new entrants.
Tax relief of buildings and reservoirs. If changed in future to houses/industrial or fishing/boating then a capital uplift tax or tax relief reversed.

Edited spelling mistake and grammer

 

[Tim W]

Get rid of
They are too easily corrupted & end up as a landowners subsidy not a farmer /food/environmental payment
It's very difficult if not impossible to stop any payments given to farmers from ending up as a reward for owning land

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Defra is now one of the weakest departments in Whitehall, hollowed out by savage cuts and chronically poor leadership.

In that respect, we saw a progressive descent from a reasonably well-intentioned Secretary of State in Caroline Spelman, to one of the worst Secretaries of State Defra has ever had (in Owen Paterson), to the ill-informed and ineffectual Liz Truss.
All the notionally independent agencies reporting to Defra (including the Environment Agency and Natural England) have had their budgets slashed - and have completely lost the will to stand up against Ministers. These are now client agencies of government, wholly captured by the current "small state" ideology.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/ne...nt_ever_by_no_stretch_of_the_imagination.html

We've just spent 2 hours entertaining a EA ex-colleague of mine while he got things off his chest. He's taking early retirement after 30 years to escape the dire organisation it has become.

So sad, the NRA was a superb organisation with a clear focus. The remaining staff seem to either be clinically depressed or to have lost the plot and think all is rosy.

Another excellent ex-colleague has just handed in his notice with no job to go to as he can't stand it there any more.

God help the public when the next big flood hits north London - it sounds like there's virtually nobody competent left to respond!

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Lest get Britain Farming again so how about bringing back drainage and liming grants .If you look back in history that period just before we joined the EU was our finest time .

 

[Wastexprt]

We've just spent 2 hours entertaining a EA ex-colleague of mine while he got things off his chest. He's taking early retirement after 30 years to escape the dire organisation it has become.

So sad, the NRA was a superb organisation with a clear focus. The remaining staff seem to either be clinically depressed or to have lost the plot and think all is rosy.

Another excellent ex-colleague has just handed in his notice with no job to go to as he can't stand it there any more.

God help the public when the next big flood hits north London - it sounds like there's virtually nobody competent left to respond!

Morale does seem to be at an all time low. The delays in permitting are atrocious at the moment, having a real impact on business, yet there seems to be little or no effort in operational compliance. I've had a few clients say to me that they have contacted officers to be told not to bother ringing them as they are too busy.

I'm not sure what started the rot, I left in 2007 and morale was relatively good, apart from mine that was .

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Morale does seem to be at an all time low. The delays in permitting are atrocious at the moment, having a real impact on business, yet there seems to be little or no effort in operational compliance. I've had a few clients say to me that they have contacted officers to be told not to bother ringing them as they are too busy.

I'm not sure what started the rot, I left in 2007 and morale was relatively good, apart from mine that was .

Time to start another thread for this I think.

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/how-much-worse-can-things-get-at-the-ea.173024/

 

[Dry Rot]

Lest get Britain Farming again so how about bringing back drainage and liming grants .If you look back in history that period just before we joined the EU was our finest time .

Yes! Yes! Yes!

 

[andybk]

1) Work on establishing decent international trade deals
2) Get rid of all direct land based subsidies
3) Invest cash in marketing/R&D
4) Ensure decent returns for public investment into environmental schemes

#1 is the most important

agree with most tim
+ remove IHTR for non farmers ,
rpa would save more £ simply questioning claimant landowners on simple farming operations , non farmers wouldnt have a clue , rather than trying to shave a small % from genuine farmers for minor non compliance issues , to fund their office , getting everyone's back up

 

[Dave645]

As a (fairly) young farmer I have been invited to meet a group of DEFRA civil servants in two weeks time.

What would you say to them about a post-Brexit UK Ag policy?

My initial thoughts (in no particular order):

Any imports must be produced to our standards of welfare and traceability.
Access to overseas labour where required, if necessary on a temporary or seasonal visa basis.
Finance to be made available to properly costed business plans.
UK Govt to work their a$$es off opening doors so that our goods can be exported.
Regulation to be based on sound, peer reviewed science, not politics or the pressure of the environmental lobby.

I'm sure environmental schemes will crop up. Now I am fairly sceptical about these but I have noticed an increase in wildlife since I re-introduced livestock to the farm a few years ago. As 'greening' for any payment is likely to be required how about a scheme to bring livestock back to the arable east? eg. grazing sheep in the winter will give you x number of points. A rotational system with grass leys gives you y points?

What would you say to DEFRA?

As you mention fairly young is the consultation about young farmers?
As it was a goal they set to encourage new or young farmers.

Tell them to change inheritance tax rules so farmer can actually retire so a active farmer that hits his national retirement age, that has family that are farming his farm, so he can still benefit from IHT relief, but step fully out of the finances of the business if they want, still own it and still be rated as an active farmer on death for IHT farm transfer.
This will allow younger farmers to step in earlier. And allow the old farmer to claim tax credits to live on if needed.

Tell them to consider a farm size sliding scale on subsidies, so smaller farms or new farmers can get a bit more while the biggest farmers get less to pay for it. Why should a 2000 Ha farmer get the same level of sub that a 100ha farmers gets or needs.
This will help young farmers on small holdings get setup and possibly allow small farms to rent more land in at affordable rents.
Targeted sub based on farm size stocking density, and possibly add in a system for rent relief for farms under a set size so to encourage them to expend, to pay for it a rent tax (in the form of subsidy reduction) on farms over a set size, so if they rent extra land when their farm is over a set size of owner occupied then it starts to cost them subsidy every farm will be allowed to rent some without penalties including the largest farms and rules have to be announced before hand so farmers can drop land if needed. This will unlock the rental markets.
If big farmers over a big set size then buy extra land it should be sub free as in they can claim no sub on the new land, then use this money to help new farmers or small farmers reach a sweet spot size in rental rebates or sub insentives.

If they want a enviormental scheme tell them to go back to ELS points system so farmers only get deductions if they don't get the points this is all the incentive environmental schemes need, if they insist on a grant system they only use the money from the farmer that don't comply so lose subsidies, looking after the environment is something any good farmer is doing, and they are often the smaller farmer.....that have done it over alots of years for no money.
let farmers divert their subsidy payments into enviormentaly improving their farms if they don't hit the points total needed, set a low target the first year with the scheme then step it up over a few years until they hit the target they want so farmer can see what they need to do and have time to avoid having subsidies deductions from not complying.

Long term goal is a minimum price system, this is an extension of your
Import standards, they set a minimum farm price system, based on average farms size in uk and average overheads they sets a minimum price, which will be good for farmers with low overheads but bad for farmers with high.....the diffrence is this price is payable to farmers in other countries as well so importers have to pay that price to any farmer in any country so no cheap imports under cutting uk farm gate prices.
This is a replacement to subs in the long term it encourages uk farmers to fill uk needs as the price can be set to do so, it discourages imports when local supplies are available, helps farmers in other countries so should avoid World trade rules as it means we may be over paying that third world farmer......
It stabilises prices in the uk let's farmers plan long term and adjust there farm overheads to the new stable prices, if we are exporting as in we are over producing if the world market is below the price set in the uk to problem if it is, then then diffrence is levied against all farmer in that sector of the industry so the government pay the diffrence then levied it back on a per tonne system based on what the farmer sold that year, so if we export say 1 million tonnes of wheat at a loss to the uk and it cost £50 million to do so that is recovered from uk wheat growers based on the area they were growing that year, so let's say that worked out to £5 per acre of wheat grown then it's levied back at that. So the tax payers don't pay it farmers do, and the entire industry is held to account.

If DEFRA helped farmers to fill uk demands by helping farmers to see what local requirements there are to fill and so avoid exports at a loss it would also help. That would help even without the minimum price guarantee.
hope the meeting goes well what ever you decide to tell them.

 

[Hooby Farmer]

In all honest opinion im sorry to say these types of meetings are fruitless. I have sat down with politicians for breakfast, lunch and dinner discussed issues of a different matter on numerous occasions. They get their picture taken, make sure they are seen to be talking to the right people at the right time say token comments like "here is my direct office line, you will be able to reach me or my secretary any time during the week." Then when there is an issue that needs addressed you are faced with comments like "our hands are tied", "its been presented to the top but we are going with option xyz its going to lead in us in a better direction." Our politicians are soft with little to no backbone then mix that with the civil servants whos only aim is to climb the ladder to further their career. They should be made walk the plank instead, the whole process lacks accountability.

 

[Hampton]

I'd ask them how they can possibly think flexi time can be a sensible thing to implement in a government department.

Hormone grown beef cannot be allowed into the Uk under any circumstances.