‘Farmers can be heroes of future for nature recovery’
THE Environment Minister has made a plea for farmers to be “positive and proactive” in their approach to emerging Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes set to replace subsidy support.
As previously reported the South
West National Farmers’ Union (NFU) warned that the industry is on a “knifeedge” as spiralling input costs, coupled with Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) reductions, cause widespread concern and uncertainty.
This comes on the back of a major report commissioned by the Great South West Partnership which found that over the transition period, from 2021 to 2027, the total BPS amount lost from the region’s rural economy will be £883.7 million by the end of 2027.
It also estimates that ELM funding will only represent 14% of the £242m that came into the Great South West area through BPS in 2020.
Speaking at the Country Land and Business Association’s (CLA) Breakfast event on the opening day of the 2022 Royal Bath & West Show, which returned yesterday after a two-year Covid-enforced absence, Rebecca Pow sought to assure her audience that the three new schemes – Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Local Nature Recovery and Landscape Recovery – will mark the beginning of a “new era” for farming and the countryside.
“There’s a swathe of opportunities which I believe we can, are, and will, really harness,” the Conservative MP for Taunton Deane added.
Addressing guests at the traditional curtain-raiser event, Ms Pow spoke of the need to produce food sustainably while also recovering nature – making reference to the 2021 Environment Act’s legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030.
There has been a “massive crash” in nature, she explained.
“Pollinators, insects, soil quality ... All of the things we need to produce food. If we can get all these back up to the right levels, they’ll provide us with free ecosystem services and we need those to produce healthy food. It’s a no-brainer.”
She went on: “I make absolutely no bones about the fact that we need you [farmers] to be involved. I need you to help me hit my nature [recovery] target in 2030.
“I actually see farmers and land owners as the heroes of the future, because without you we cannot do these things and that’s why I do hope people will be positive and proactive. As a Government we, of course, stood on our manifesto of committing to that money – £2.4 billion a year through the life of this parliament – that’s some commitment. If we don’t get the uptake, you have to say ‘will the money still be there?’
“They’ll be flexible programmes and projects, so if things aren’t working we will tweak them. They won’t be set in stone like they were under the CAP.”
Mark Tufnell, president of the CLA, also urged farmers to “embrace” the Government’s transition period from the CAP to ELM scheme, adding: “Please be patient and don’t be cynical.”