Environmental stewardship in light of BREXIT

“paying farmers for protecting the environment and enhancing animal welfare is front and centre of our future farming policy” …it could not be clearer!

The often criticised and complex “basic (oh the irony) payment scheme” which currently sees our farmers receive a direct payment based on the area of land which they farm,  will slowly be phased out, replaced with the new kid on the block: ELM  

ELM, which stands for “Environmental Land Management” will pay farmers for delivering “public goods”.  This may conjure up thoughts of free school meals and battle ships, but what DEFRA has in mind is of wider national and global significance.

Environmental Land Management is the corner stone of the UK’s environmental and agricultural policy following BREXIT.  The focus is on land managers providing improved air, water and soil quality, increased biodiversity, climate change mitigation and cultural benefits.  

How will this all be measured and rewarded?  Well watch this space! With pilot schemes currently underway across the country, we all wait with bated breath for further clarity on how payments will be calculated, and outcomes measured.

So how do we get from where we are, to where we want or need to go?

What is happening to the current payments?

Currently our farmers receive around £250 per hectare of land that they farm, and payments are linked to area of land.  The rules of the scheme are quite complicated, farmers make a claim once a year and are paid a single annual lump sum payment, usually around December. 

The scheme has attracted criticism for rewarding landowners for simply owning land rather than producing food or delivering enhanced environmental and animal welfare standards.  The single annual payment can also cause extreme cash flow problems for those farmers are rely on the scheme.

The scheme relied on money coming out of the EU; in fact, around £13 billion was coming directly out of the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy to fund the Basic Payment Scheme. Now that we have left the EU, any money used to fund the scheme going forward will come from the Treasury.  

The Government has pledged to commit the same levels of money in funds to support farmers until the end of the current Parliament, but they have made it clear that ongoing future funding will a decision for “future fiscal events.”

“Phasing out”

The current scheme will be phased out over the next 7 years.  The detail of how this will work in practice is awaited, but the suggestion is a tapered % reduction in the amount that our farmers receive each year.  

Those farmers that have received the greatest amounts under the scheme will see a larger % reduction for each year leading up to 2027.

So, what is Countryside Stewardship (CS)?

Countryside Stewardship is a separate rural payment scheme from the Basic Payment Scheme (although the rules do overlap in areas and the applications are made via the same online service).  

CS provides financial incentives for land managers to look after the environment.  There are several elements to the scheme, ranging from simple and effective environmental management under ‘Mid-Tier’ such as woodland support and basic wildlife offers, through to bespoke schemes for more environmentally significant sites under ‘Higher Tier’.

The Scheme provides for the payment of grants to management options and capital items which support activities benefiting the site and the wider environment.

In recent years, there has been a relatively low take up of Countryside Stewardship, blamed on payment issues and uncertainty over multi year scheme options in light of an uncertain BREXIT.

It remains to be seen if in the current climate of transitional “calm”, we see a sea change, as the application for the 2021 Countryside Stewardship Scheme opened earlier this month.

Certainly, that is how George Eustice is playing it!  He is urging farmers and landowners to get involved this year.  He says “entering a Countryside Stewardship Scheme is a good steppingstone to [that] future policy.  There is nothing to be gained by holding back. We are guaranteeing that anyone who joins our new scheme in the future will be able to leave their CS agreement early in order to do so.”

…and by “our new scheme”he of course means Environmental Land Management.