by Vicki Hird MSc
CAP to ELMs: A new farm policy, a new era for farmers in England – A perspective contributed by Vicki Hird MSc. FRES, Strategic Lead on Agriculture at the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts
It has been said often that one small, but significant Brexit benefit has been the opportunity for the four devolved nations to decide for themselves how to support farmers, make better use of the land, restore ecosystems and nature and regulate farming. Has that materialised after years of discussion, cocreating and political upheavals? Well yes, largely but more work is needed.
The Agriculture Act 2020 took many years to pass but contained the right elements to allow a move from a support mechanism for farmers via the EU Common Agricultural Policy of around £3.2bn per year to one based on payments mainly for delivering public goods such as protected nature, critical climate mitigation, public access and clean water. It also had clauses to better regulate supply chains and create more transparency which are vital as the market must play and pay fair.
But in terms of support, in England, the Government decided to move almost all support this way and so all the old style, Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments will cease in 2028. It has been a tortuous process – with many meetings, tests and trials, lobbying and backward steps, political upheavals – to reach the stage where all farmers now have access to a very large suite of Sustainable Farming Incentive payments for public benefit actions.
There is not space to detail them all here, as it’s a huge list of actions, some of which need endorsement from other agencies like Natural England. But they cover issues ranging from integrated pest control to managing woodland edges on arable land, from agroforestry to peatland restoration.[i] It’s a fantastic shift from the old payments but much remains to be seen as to whether this will work.
In addition, there will now be many higher ambition Countryside Stewardship schemes[ii] – going live in Summer 2025, which are vital for nature’s recovery, and which have been disastrously delayed – as many farmers in older schemes have not been able to transfer and are hugely disadvantaged by far low payments rates.
Finally, there have been two rounds of Landscape Recovery – the final tier – which will pay for much larger landscape and catchment scale action facilitation and major land use changes. These need to get into implementation phase in 2025. As these new schemes will be rolled out while the key farm income support (the basic payment scheme BPS) is almost gone, it is crucial that they work well as most farmers have relied on BPS to support farm viability and supplement farm incomes.
The scale of change, and the complexities farmers will now have to embrace – new for a significant number who never use agri-environment payment schemes before – should not be underestimated. So there should be a huge increase in access to affordable or free advice, farmer led R&D, guidance and demonstration – farmer led being best, to help farmers on the transition. Without these its hard to see how farmers will be equipped to make the right decisions for their business or public outcomes.
The nations’ approaches
It’s a different situation in the other nations. In Wales farmers are getting a new Sustainable Farming payment which has had a very rocky start and is lower in ambition now but which may help all farms to transition to nature and climate friendly farming. In Scotland the plan is largely mirroring the old CAP approach but may be tweaked. In Northern Ireland it has been a tough period with no change for many of the years but farmers will be able to access a scheme to reward farmers for adopting sustainable practices with payments based on results.
The finance
Money available for these transitions is key and there have been years of uncertainty. Both farming organisations and conservation bodies have done the work to show what’s needed to deliver on the scale of need for natures recovery, climate adaptation, water and soil protection and food security.[iii]
The 2024 budget was a momentous one in that many feared major cuts to the budget in a post-election fiscal drive to save money. Defra fought and won to keep and increase the budget to £5bn over the following two years. Taking inflation into account it’s still a cut[iv], in but it is a huge sum of money reflecting the need to really support farmers.
Wider challenges need action
As noted above we need far more investment in advice and demonstration given the huge shift farmers are being asked to make. But they are also up against an extremely harsh marketplace. Sectors like horticulture need specific strategies given their importance.[v]
Buyers at the farm gate are ever more demanding in terms of prices, timing, cosmetic appearance and so on. The Agriculture Act put in place tools for more transparency in supply chains and new sector based contractual regulation – to be adjudicated by Defra. This is now in place, for dairy so far, but we need all sectors covered by new rules and a robust process, via the new Agriculture Supply Chian Adjudicator (ASCA), to enforce them and use penalties for non-compliance. This also needs to work closely with the Groceries Code Adjudicator to avoid poor outcomes. The transparency in data promises of the Agriculture Act also need to be delivered to level the power imbalances. Ideally markets will be supporting farmers in the transition and recognising changes needed, in prices and demands as well as accepting that what farmers produce will change, and so sharing all the risks and costs involved. Changing consumer understanding and action on what sustainable diet is will also be key.[vi]
Trade is a big issue and the global market is a poor replacement for the EU market on our doorstep following Brexit. Building better EU relations is key. But so too is action to stop imports produced to lower environmental, animal welfare, public health and labour standards must be a priority for this government, with new trade deal core standards. Without this, farmers doing as much as they can here will not be able to continue to produce food, or public goods, in ways they need to if competing with such imports.
So, several years on we do have a powerful new tool to ensure climate resilient and nature friendly farming could become the norm and new measures to regulate the market. But the evidence is clear that the major policy shifts must accelerate, as soon as possible, the drive to adapted farming as well as allow nature and carbon outcomes on far more land. Changes in the food system are equally important too especially to ensure a just transition[vii]. We urgently need agroecological, regenerative farming and nature-based solutions for climate on all farmed land, with diversity at its heart.
[i] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sustainable-farming-incentive-scheme-expanded-offer-for-2024/sfi-scheme-information-expanded-offer-for-2024
[ii] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/countryside-stewardship-higher-tier-get-ready-to-apply
[iii] Wildlife Trusts, National Trust, RSPB 2024 report “For farming, nature and climate Investing in the UK’s natural infrastructure to achieve Net Zero and nature’s recovery on land”.
[iv] https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/barnaby-coupe/nature-friendly-farming-budget-escapes-cuts-leaves-defra-important-decisions
[v] https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/save-our-fruit-and-veg
[vi] https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/vicki-hird/what-we-eat-matters-enormously-nature
[vii] https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/vicki-hird/just-transition-farming-and-food-possible-and-essential