NFU on new ELM schemes: “lack of detail" barrier to farmers' making key "long-term decisions”

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) has welcomed the announcement by Defra today that the government will be introducing two new environmental land management (ELM) schemes, but say many questions remain unanswered about how farmers will put policy into practice.

The Local Nature Recovery scheme will pay farmers for locally-targeted actions which make space for nature on their managed land. This could include restoring peat and wetland areas, tree planting and creating wildlife habitat.

The Landscape Recovery scheme will see more ‘radical changes’ to habitat restoration and land use including restoring floodplains and creating new nature reserves.

While it is hoped that the two new ELMs alongside the existing Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme will bring up to 60 per cent of England’s agricultural soil under sustainable management by 2030, and restore up to 300,000 hectares of wildlife habitat by 2042, NFU vice president Tom Bradshaw says more details needed to be fleshed out to ensure farmers can successfully achieve ELM goals.

Emphasising the need for both accessibility and inclusivity he said:

“There are still a number of questions that need answers, not least the costs farmers are likely to incur from participating in these new schemes and how the schemes are accessible right across the country and for every farmer. Currently there appears to be a lack of options for tenant farmers to get involved and this must be addressed as a matter of urgency.

“It is also clear that neither Local Nature Recovery or Landscape Recovery will be widely available to farmers over the next three years, making it difficult to replace the falling income from the BPS.

"To remedy this, farmers must have more detail about the new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), specifically when will SFI ‘early rollout’ be launched this year and how quickly can the SFI offer be increased to enable greater uptake, so they can make the important decisions needed now which will affect their business for years to come.”

And on the importance of incentivising farmers Bradshaw added:

“Only by ensuring these schemes incentivise sustainable food production, allow every farm business to be involved, and pay farmers fairly for the costs they incur, will they attract the participation the government envisages to deliver our collective environmental and net zero ambitions.”

Applications will shortly open for the first wave of Landscape Recovery projects, awarded to up to 15 pilot projects that will focus on two themes – recovering England’s threatened native species and restoring England’s rivers and streams.

An early version of the Local Nature Recovery scheme will be trialled in 2023 with a full roll-out across the country from 2024.

More on sustainable farming:

Agriculture, Biodiversity and Climate Change Network brings farmers together for the climate

COP26 has made it clear: agriculture it’s your time to step forward for the climate