Agricultural subsidy payments
December 28, 2023
Defra’s target is for at least 70% of farmers, covering at least 70% of farmland, to take up Sustainable Farming Incentive agreements.
Defra’s target is for at least 70% of farmers, covering at least 70% of farmland, to take up Sustainable Farming Incentive agreements.
Since the creation of the first farms over 10,000 years ago, mankind has devised increasingly clever ways of harvesting sunlight and converting this into food by essentially growing carbon in sustainable farming systems. However, it is only in the last 100 years or so that we have found ways to accelerate this process, partly based on extraction of oil and gas, enabling us to produce more food for an ever-increasing population. Our use of improved science, technology and training has been targeted at maximising production to produce cheap and plentiful food and energy supplies. This has been the strategy of governments around the globe and measured against this, the agricultural industry has been highly successful. However, the success has come
There is no way in which we can win the battle against climate change unless we recognise the central role which agriculture must play. Net Zero is not just a matter of radically reducing our emissions. There can’t be human or animal life without emissions. Zero has therefore never been on the cards. However, before the Industrial revolution, the earth – through oceans, soil, and trees – sequestered enough of those emissions to maintain the climate patterns which made human life possible. That was the balance of nature with which we have interfered both by massively increasing our emissions and by reducing the earth’s capacity to sequester. We have cut down our forests, polluted our oceans, and degraded our soils.
After Brexit, the links and partnerships between farmers, processors, retailers and consumers have taken on a greater importance.
British agriculture represents 8% of all transport GHG emissions, derived from on and off-road farm transport and other fossil fuel driven machinery.
Successful transition requires a step change in knowledge and research turning ‘science into practice’, and targeted government support.
Meaningful change needs to be underpinned by science-based targets, new technology, innovation and working alongside nature-based solutions.
The speed of replacement of fossil fuels on farms will be greatly enhanced by more on-farm working demonstration sites often managed by ‘early adopters’.
Such techniques can increase yields by as much as 20%. However, most autonomous systems currently remain driver supervised.
This section covers potential transformation of farming operations based on system such as controlled traffic farming, autonomous vehicles and robotics.