New payments for farmers any better than much-scorned Common Agricultural Policy?

Earlier this month, the government announced new payments for farmers which call into question whether future environmental outcomes will be any better than during the much-scorned Common Agricultural Policy that helped caused nature to crash in the first place, writes Erin McDaid, of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.

The details revealed by farming minister Mark Spencer about government plans to pay more to farmers to protect the environment through the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes demonstrate a desperately low level of ambition.

They also signal a return to area-based payments, with no requirement for environmental improvement, via the back door.

The government has chosen to put more money into the least effective strand of the scheme — the one that will deliver the smallest amount of public benefits — undermining the more ambitious elements of the scheme at a stroke.

We were promised a better system when we left the EU - but look set for a continuation of the same old damaging practices because farmers have no better offers on the table. This is all the more frustrating given that our own experience of working with dozens of farmers across Nottinghamshire shows that many do care about the environment — they just need encouragement and support to take positive action.

One thing certain to discourage them from participating in new schemes is a lack of clarity about the support on offer — and the government’s piecemeal approach is not helping one bit.

Over the past six years, four successive Governments said that they would generously reward farmers for making a significant contribution to tackling the nature and climate crises, yet we remain very much in the dark about how much of this will be delivered.

The Department for Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) continues to reveal one piece of a huge and complex jigsaw puzzle at a time, making it almost impossible for anyone to visualise the bigger picture and undermining farmers’ ability to plan.

The Wildlife Trusts want to see the nature and climate crises addressed urgently through the strengthening, rather than weakening of the new ELM schemes.

The ministerial announcement will result in more of the funding paying farmers to deliver the most basic good practice instead of rewarding them for delivering approaches that result in real public benefits.

This policy will ultimately be counter-productive because farmers need support to tackle climate change and the nature crisis to ensure the sustainability of their own businesses.

We also want to see a dramatic reduction in the reliance on damaging pesticides by ensuring integrated pest management becomes the mainstream approach.

At the time of writing, the government is once again deciding whether to approve the use of banned

pesticides, neonicotinoids. If it does, this will be the third year in a row — again demonstrating that rhetoric about commitments to tackling the nature and climate crisis is not matched by real time action.

Along with other organisations including the Freshwater Habitats Trust and Institute of Fisheries Management, The Wildlife Trusts have written to the Secretary of State, Therese Coffey, urging her to stand by the target agreed at COP15 to halve the harm caused by pesticides by 2030. We’ve also asked that she respect the advice of the government’s own experts by upholding the ban on the use of toxic pesticides.

There are now just seven years left for the government to deliver its own legally binding target, set out in the Environment Act, to halt nature declines.

We want the government to speed up significantly the delivery of support for farmers to take ambitious action for nature and climate to realise its promise to protect 30% of land and sea for nature and deliver the UK’s international biodiversity and climate objectives. It is vital that the government takes urgent action to ensure that farmers play a major role in these recovery plans.

In the words of Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts: “Farmers need much more support to adapt to climate change — they need stronger incentives to do the right thing.”

Locally we will continue to work with farmers who want to play their part and we are heartened, if a little overwhelmed, by the level of demand for support from our small team of farm advisers.

Together with farmers and landowners, we are doing what we can to create a wilder Nottinghamshire for all by buffering and linking areas of existing wildlife value, creating new habitat for wading birds on marginally productive land, installing specially designed nest boxes for threatened willow tits and creating feeding habitat for rare cuckoos.

In the weeks ahead we will also invite farming minister Mark Spencer, MP for Sherwood and a farmer himself, to come and see the exciting work we are doing with farmers. Hopefully seeing effort to reduce pesticide use, protect and conserve soils, capture carbon and create new habitats for wildlife will help drive home the point that farmers want to do more to protect and restore our shared environment — but can only do so if given the right encouragement and support.