Will you be looking to take part in the future SFI/ELMS scheme? - 21/09/21

Based on your understanding of it today, will you be looking to take part in the future SFI scheme?

  • Yes

    Votes: 6 6.7%
  • No

    Votes: 84 93.3%

  • Total voters
    90
  • Poll closed .

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Quick poll following on from Janet Hughes Q&A yesterday.

Based on your current understandings of the scheme today, will you be looking to take part in the future SFI/ELMS scheme?



Poll will close in 10 days
 

Boysground

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Wiltshire
Went with no, reality is it’s more like a sitting on the fence maybe. But I have never been able to fit any previous scheme into the business without loosing productivity/ profit. I can’t see elms being any different at the moment.

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DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Just can’t be bothered with something that runs counter to thousands of years of progress keeping the job tidy etc. Nothing against nature reserves, wonderful things, but I need to keep it straightforward, tidy and hygienic here. Unfortunately little strips of this and that take up as much time as a 10 ha block of crop and really deliver nothing, but harbour vermin and pestilence. There was a reason fields ended up big and tidy. The reason was the good husbandry required to produce a clean cost effective crop. We seem forget a lot of those reasons.
Advice to DEFRA : if you want to rewild or whatever it is then why not buy up land like the forestry commission did and do it yourself just how you like. In the mean time I’m cracking on growing crops and commodities I can sell at a profit. I’m not interested in anything else, frankly.
 

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
Tbf I’d join any ducking scheme that would give me money but the way my business is all the landlords I work with claim all the payments possible and I just have cheap rents and jump through what ever hoops they ask me too..
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
When you see a fully loaded 29 tonner rolling out the yard, well for me that’s the reward for a years work. There will have been trials and tribulations along the way but at least there is something to show for it. Better than a badger infested grass margin hoaching with useless thistles and ragwort or a “ bird strip” that ends up a magnet for every rat in the district. As I say, there is a reason why farms traditionally keep the job tidy.
 

HatsOff

Member
Mixed Farmer
Just can’t be bothered with something that runs counter to thousands of years of progress keeping the job tidy etc. Nothing against nature reserves, wonderful things, but I need to keep it straightforward, tidy and hygienic here. Unfortunately little strips of this and that take up as much time as a 10 ha block of crop and really deliver nothing, but harbour vermin and pestilence. There was a reason fields ended up big and tidy. The reason was the good husbandry required to produce a clean cost effective crop. We seem forget a lot of those reasons.
Advice to DEFRA : if you want to rewild or whatever it is then why not buy up land like the forestry commission did and do it yourself just how you like. In the mean time I’m cracking on growing crops and commodities I can sell at a profit. I’m not interested in anything else, frankly.
I share your skepticism over the scheme, but I would question that things are quite like things were for thousands of years. Since the war a huge range of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilisers have changed how farmers interact with the environment. A 'tidy' 1900s farm would have had huge scope for wildlife to co-exist (and eat the crops, spread disease etc), plus the intensity of production was lower.

So, yeah, I agree we should be let to get on with food production but also we should recognise the last 60 years have also been a bit of an experiment with new chemicals and technologies and the environment probably has suffered because of it.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I share your skepticism over the scheme, but I would question that things are quite like things were for thousands of years. Since the war a huge range of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilisers have changed how farmers interact with the environment. A 'tidy' 1900s farm would have had huge scope for wildlife to co-exist (and eat the crops, spread disease etc), plus the intensity of production was lower.

So, yeah, I agree we should be let to get on with food production but also we should recognise the last 60 years have also been a bit of an experiment with new chemicals and technologies and the environment probably has suffered because of it.
Fair point. I recognise that and we are trying more benign methods under our own steam. Not sure I need government interference in it though.
 

yellowbelly

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N.Lincs
I know it's early days in this poll but at the moment 1 vote for and 51 against either means we're a load of miserable, sceptical barstewards on here or DEFRA might as well cut and run and stop wasting their time and money trying to get anybody to sign up for ELMS.

Just sayin' :whistle:
 

GeorgeK

Member
Location
Leicestershire
The budget for ELMS/SFI is only guaranteed up until the end of the current parliament. Given our country's economic situation it will likely be reduced ASAP thereafter so anyone signing up will be chasing ever dwindling payment rates that were marginal to begin with IMO. I'm out.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 76 43.7%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 27 15.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 3 1.7%

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

  • 1,284
  • 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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