Farmers to be rewarded for benefiting wildlife
An Agricultural Bill aims to address the balance between farming and conservation.
P lans to use public money to support more wildlife friendly ways of farming following the UK’s departure from the EU have reached a vital stage in their route through Parliament.
The Agriculture Bill – which will result in farmers being rewarded for the benefits they provide, such as healthier soils, cleaner water and higher biodiversity, rather than for the amount of land they own – was due to have passed the committee stage in the House of Commons by mid-November.
Launching the legislation in September, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) said the current subsidy system – under the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) – favoured the largest landowners, with the top 10 per cent of farmers receiving 50 per cent of the £3bn funding being allocated.
“Under the new system, farmers and land managers who provide the greatest environmental benefits will secure the largest rewards,” it said in a statement. The Nature Friendly Farming Network, which says it unites farmers committed to managing land for wildlife, supports the reforms.
The network’s chair, Martin Lines, an arable farmer from Cambridgeshire, says a lot of the detail on how the new system of payments will work will be contained in secondary and other legislation. “The devil will be in the detail, and how it all dovetails together,” he says.
“Farmers have a bigger role in society than just growing food, but the industry only ever talks about production,” he adds. “We have a 7–10 year transition period to change the mindset of some farmers.”
Wildlife groups, such as the RSPB, broadly support the aims of the bill – though they are concerned by the lack of guarantees that post-Brexit funding will match that of CAP – while the National Farmers’ Union has accused the Government of downplaying the importance of food production in favour of environmental issues.
Georgina Downs, of the UK Pesticides Campaign, says the bill will do nothing to reduce agricultural use of pesticides. “70 per cent of the UK is farmland, and only 3 per cent of it is organic,” Downs says. “That means we’re spraying chemicals, designed to be toxic, over a huge area.” James Fair