Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Farming and feeding nation must be the goal
Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger tells Defra Secretary Steve Barclay there is growing disillusionment with the Government’s Sustainable Farming Incentive
DEAR Steve, Having heard all the submissions put forward last week by the NFU and the CLA on the sustainable farming programme my only question is ‘why?’.
Why was it thought necessary to scrap the old system of area payments we enjoyed in the EU. I concede that there were flaws in it in that larger landowners who didn’t actually need the cash were getting huge sums doled out to them while smaller farmers weren’t getting enough. But those inequalities could have been ironed out by simply using a system of ceilings and thresholds to make sure there was fairer distribution.
But no. For some reason – I suspect merely because it was a European programme – it was chucked out in favour (when it was eventually unveiled) of a complex and hideously challenging system of payments which appears more designed to limiting the amount of support paid to farmers rather than ensuring they continue to receive the levels of support they had become used to and, frankly, need.
I know all kinds of reassurance was given that farmers would be no worse off and that they would merely have to access their money via a different route – and deliver some benefits back to the nation for it.
That was an enormous porky. It has not worked out like that at all. Partly because in order to unlock some of this largesse, farmers have to invest heavily so the £2.4 billion that we claim to be funnelling into the industry story is highly misleading. The net figure is far lower.
Nor are the levels of support high enough. As we heard last week the scale of investment needed exceeds, in many cases, the consequent payment. Which is not just nonsense, it is a situation likely to lead to hundreds of farmers deciding they will be better advised not to sign up to SFI. Because it will only leave them worse off than they are now.
What we have come up with, on the other hand, is a highly complex piece of bureaucracy which is far more costly to manage than the old area payment scheme but which as a consequence does have the merit of creating and sustaining, many, many jobs for the civil servants.
Which, I might venture to suggest, was not the original intent. Neither will this play well with sections of the agriculture community.
Such as the hill farmers who have been historically supported for the best part of a century because of the difficulties of farming the uplands, who were promised assistance under the new system but who, in many cases find they cannot access it because none of its provisions apply to them.
I suggest it is time to rethink the entire SFI scheme in the light of the foregoing. And please will you bear in mind the fact that its aim should be to keep farmers farming and feeding the nation rather than driving them off the land so we can let it all run to wilderness. Or perhaps I am missing something.
Happy New Year!