Yesterday Defra announced what it is going to do with £11bn of your money – the answer is ‘not much’ except give it to farmers.
That is £11,000,000,000. If you earn £100k a year (I bet you don’t) then it is the whole of your salary for 110,000 years.
This is what the RSPB said:
‘Poor’ deal for English farming: a ‘wasted opportunity’ for environment
At a time when Government budgets are under increasing stress and scrutiny and the environment and wildlife are facing tremendous pressures, the RSPB is highlighting the ‘poor’ deal announced by Defra today (Tuesday 10 June, 2014), which shows that of the £11bn to be spent on direct subsidies to farmers in England, very little will have any environmental benefit.
Defra has today announced their final decisions on some of the key elements of the Common Agricultural Policy. Today’s announcement focuses on the so-called ‘greening’ element, which will tie 30 per cent of a farmer’s subsidy payments to new environmental requirements. However, the deal has been so watered down by lobbying from vested interests that it’s become a ‘wasted opportunity’.
Martin Harper is the RSPB’s Conservation Director. He said: “Today’s announcement is a wasted opportunity. When push came to shove the Government wasn’t prepared to stand by its commitment to incorporate wider benefits for society and the environment into support for farmers.”
The RSPB is highlighting that Defra – the Government’s environment department – could have done far more to ensure funding was spent more wisely. There are many challenges facing England’s environment including: climate change, an erosion of wildlife, including economically-vital pollinators, and other factors, such as flooding.
Martin Harper added: “The Government talks a good talk, but in this case they failed to join up their policies when they had the chance. Today’s decision misses the chance deliver their own ambitions around the Natural Environment White Paper and the England Biodiversity Strategy, which commits to being the first generation to pass on the natural environment in an enhanced state to the next.”
The RSPB believes with imagination and courage Defra could have used this funding much more wisely and made great strides in tackling the environmental challenges we face. For example, Ecological Focus Areas – a Greening measure which will require farms growing crops to manage a small percentage of their land for environmental benefit – could have been a flagship measure to help ailing populations of pollinating insects, by providing pollen and nectar.
Martin Harper added: “Instead, the Government has squandered this opportunity and is handing out £11bn to the farming industry in England and expecting very, very little in return. Without decent green measures, particularly Ecological Focus Areas that actually deliver for wildlife, the Government’s new Pollinator Strategy – anticipated in autumn – will be toothless.”
The focus of getting anything back for the public’s investment in agricultural payments will now focus on the much smaller Rural Development part of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Abi Bunker is the RSPB’s head of agricultural policy. Commenting on the environmental challenges facing English farming, she said: “We salute those progressive farmers who realise the importance of tackling environmental challenges and are putting their shoulders to the wheel to save threatened species. With so much squandered cash, society must now get best value for money from those, sadly, much smaller elements of the English farming budget where environmental gains can be made, especially through Agri-environment schemes.
“The new ‘greening’ measures should have provided environmental gains across all England’s farmland. But, instead, it will add no value at all. Given the crisis facing our countryside, and the fact that Agri-environment budgets remain woefully inadequate, this feels totally wrong.”
Following today’s announcement the RSPB calls on the Government to:
– make good on its promise to shift the maximum amount of funding from subsidies to agri-environment schemes at the earliest opportunity;
– ensure that the remaining rules and regulations linked to subsidy payments provide some level of environmental protection.
ends
This is what the Wildlife Trusts said:
Nature pushed to the precipice on farms
Today’s decision is “deeply disappointing”
Hopes for a fairer deal for the taxpayer by using public money to improve the environment in the farmed landscape in ways that benefit us all, have been dashed with today’s government announcement by Environment Minister, Owen Paterson.
Following last year’s decisions about the Common Agricultural Policy, the government today announced how it will implement key aspects of farming reforms. Unfortunately, it has failed to grasp this unique opportunity to save precious – and declining – wildflower grasslands. The government has also failed to ensure that new Ecological Focus Areas will benefit nature.
Stephen Trotter, The Wildlife Trust’s Director, England, explains: “We’re deeply disappointed that this opportunity for a greener, fairer and better-value Common Agricultural Policy has been lost. It is extraordinary that the government has decided against protecting wildlife-rich grasslands in England – it has decided against a no-plough rule for these most precious places. Our species-rich grasslands are in steep decline and need all the help they can get. Greening measures have been watered down to the point of being ineffectual.
He adds: “We are also concerned about the rules around Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs). These areas are supposed to benefit nature and the environment. The government’s decision to give public money to farmers to include nitrogen-fixing crops such as peas and beans in these EFAs is clearly not good value for the public taxpayer and of virtually no benefit to wildlife. To make matters worse, there won’t be any additional restrictions on the cultivation of these crops – for example, farmers will be free to use pesticides and fertilisers.
Today’s government decisions concern the distribution of £15 billion of funds in England over the next Common Agricultural Policy period from 2015.
Stephen Trotter concludes: “Today’s announcement does not sit comfortably with the stated aim of paying farmers to deliver environmental benefits in return for public funding. These decisions are bad news for nature, they fail the taxpayer, and they fail those farmers who do the right thing and really understand the connection between the future of their industry and the wildlife on their farms.”
For the last two years The Wildlife Trusts have been encouraging Government to be more ambitious in their approach to ‘greening’ – the name given to new measures to help wildlife on farms, improve rivers and water quality, living soils, habitats for bees, barn owls, brown hares and butterflies and so much more. But, these latest announcements show that the our words have fallen on deaf ears as during negotiations the greening has been stripped back, watered down and downplayed to such a degree as to be almost meaningless. This leaves a situation which is barely better than business as usual and is unlikely to raise the environmental bar, which is so desperately needed.
The greening proposals were supposed to elicit more public benefit from each pound of Common Agricultural Policy money spent. The idea was to reward farmers for protecting vital grasslands and identifying areas for nature on arable farms – all as part of sustainable and responsible farming.
The government must now consider how it will demonstrate the environmental benefits that are claimed for new greening measures. We believe they will be negligible and therefore it is important that the government now ensures that more money is moved into Pillar 2 in the lifetime of the programme to support the new environmental land management schemes. These voluntary schemes, if well targeted, have great potential and this country has a good track record of delivering for nature via the Higher Level Stewardship scheme – such schemes reward those farmers who are doing the most for the environment.
The Government is committed to reviewing the demand for the new schemes and the competitiveness of English agriculture in 2016, with the intention of moving more money into this pot (increasing the amount transferred from Pillar 1 from 12% to 15% in 2018 and 2019, the final two years of the CAP period). It is now vital that the review is considered in the context of the environmental outcomes delivered by greening. Another option open to the government to strengthen greening is to introduce a National Certification Scheme for greening at some stage in the programme, but that was ruled out last year and now seems unlikely.
Out of a budget for England of £15bn for this CAP period, only £3.1bn will be spent on new environmental land management schemes, and £2.2bn of that is accounted for by existing schemes.
Stephen Trotter adds: “In the light of the decisions on greening made today, if we are to reverse the decline of wildlife, address issues relating to water quality, pollinators and the value of the English landscape, we must invest more in the nature that supports farming.”
I prefer the WT version but both RSPB and the WTs are saying the same thing really – for all this money, your money and my money, that we pay to farmers in this time of austerity we aren’t getting much for our money and nature isn’t getting much for our money either.
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‘More beans please’ as this will increase the number of rats in the countryside. One chapter in my ‘Hadrian’s Wildlife’ book shows what happens when a bean field is left to nature. 4 pairs of Barn owls took up residence to feed on all the rats and mice but as that was a ‘one off’ I am sure all will happen in the future is the poison will be brought out in buckets full. Near by 68 Polecats were killed in tunnel traps. Just think how many rats they would have eaten and hopefully the biggest rat of all, Patterson himself!!
Time to scrap the CAP Mark. I’ve just written a long post setting out why it would be better to start again. I’d appreciate your thoughts on it.
http://wp.me/p3vKib-m2
In your linked blog you mention £4Bn. Mark says £11Bn. Who has the other £7Bn? Does everyone have a share?
Milo the £4Bn in my blog refers to the UK annual cost of CAP. I suspect the £11bn that Mark refers to is an England figure for Pillar 1 payments over 7 years? That would be my guess.
Great blog Miles. You have pretty well outlined the futility and stupidity of the government payment systems. My view is why give the farmers any payments at all !!
Alun Davies, the Welsh Government Minister for Natural Resources and Food, tweeted yesterday (@AlunDaviesAM) that this would not apply to Wales, and that he would announce Welsh decisions ‘in a couple of weeks’.
It will be interesting to see how devolution affects support for the farming environment on this side of the border.
Deeply disappointing. The suggestion that pea and bean crops – with no restrictions on inputs – will be good for wildlife because the flowers attract bees and other pollinators, can only produce a hollow laugh.
Indeed Jonathan. On yesterday’s World at One on Radio4 Martha Kearney (a keen beekeeper) was interviewing George Eustice and Lynn Dicks. Eustice made Jonathan’s point about peas and beans and said he couldn’t see any difference on the pollen source. Lynn Dicks said she would explain it but was told there wasn’t time!
Here is a link to Lynn Dicks’ research on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27719414
like most, all? of the so called environmental things done through this government desperately disappointing hardly covers it, totally clueless might be better.
Sadly same old stuff from RSPB who know as much about farming as farmers know about birds.
They will never get what they want farmers to do while speaking about farming as they do.
Lots of what they say is probably untrue.
For instance I did try to challenge his figure he has quoted again yesterday but he blocked my comments about such matters and Hen Harriers,he certainly has a problem if such a clever chap cannot answer a retired small farmer.
The figure he quote yesterday is that he makes out that rspb made net profit of £684 per hectare from their peas.Actually I doubt it is anywhere near this figure if he takes out the large % that rspb gives to their share partner,also they need to take out a figure for rent equivalent and for interest on money invested in the farm that all other farmers have to find.
If that is incorrect then how many other things said by rspb concerning farming are incorrect.
Wouldn’t it be nice for people playing at farming and real amateurs at least acknowledged they were not as knowledgeable on agriculture as the professionals.
Oh of course they know it all seeing as they run one farm in conjunction with a farmer while there are something like 41,000 farmers in UK.UNBELIEVABLE.
Dennis
Leaving aside how much RSPB may or may not know about the economics of farming, do you think it is right that a large amount of public money ostensibly intended to be spent on greening agriculture should be spent on commercial pea and bean crops instead of on protecting species rich grasslands, for example?
Disappointing but predictable “missed opportunity”. NFU lobbies better than RSPB or the Wildlife Trusts I guess. How do we punish the politicians? I live in a safe seat so have no voice, but for those that are lucky enough to live in a contested area who should they vote for? I don’t hear Labour jumping up and down about the decline in the state of British Wildlife. Concern is all about the supposed cost of living crisis and the economy. All I can think of is to vote green as a protest vote but it feels like a hollow gesture, easy to ignore and unlikely to bring about any change. Perhaps if large organisations like the National Trust and the RSPB, whose memberships dwarf those of the political parties, were to publicly support the Green party, or at least rate each party according to its track record and stated policies, then politicians might take greater notice?
Jonathon,I have a open mind on these payments and dislike any farmer getting large amounts say above £15,000.
Regarding species rich grassland,in general farming that is never going to happen as the modern grasses say such as Ryegrass are much more productive that no farmer is probably going to grow those species that would really benefit wildlife,that is why I have always thought the way forward would be to make it as profitable for all farmers to grow a smallish % of their farm(say 5%) into various options of wildlife friendly crops that are of no other economic value.
There is no doubt in my mind that farmland birds would benefit immensely.
Almost all conservationists seem unable to see that at the moment the way the rspb insinuate various things about farmers without actually saying they do not like the majority of them is counter productive for farmland birds.
For example if they annoy a retired small farmer who is a rspb member and admires say 95% of what they do and consider I have good relations with several rspb employees on the ground then quite obviously they annoy the average farmer assuming they even know who rspb are.
The rspb make a big issue about their good relations with a really small % of farmers but it is the majority they need to get on board.
It’s fair to say that with all the wrangling to and fro over CAP reform, what we’re left with is a right dog’s breakfast. Not sure what the full ramifications of greening will be for us yet but it seems we are at a disadvantage having recently started a new ELS/HLS agreement.
To qualify for greening we will either have to use some of our existing ELS options, therefore sacrificing the payment we would get for those, or put in additional greening measures to meet the requirement. We won’t want to take a payment cut so we will probably go for the latter. Sounds like we should be able to include hedges in this. It’s about time farmers with smaller fields and more hedges were rewarded. We won’t want to take any additional land out of production as our rent has just gone up by 60%, so it will be important to us that we are getting an income of our land. This is why growing pulse crops to contribute to our greening requirement is a genuine consideration. Ok they aren’t meadows but peas are great for grey partridge and I have been trying to justify growing some for this reason for some time. Also the value of not using nitrogen fertiliser on these crops must not be underestimated, in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions etc..
Statement of interest. I run a hill farm employing 2 people and about 30 per cent of our turnover comes from government payments. Without that support the business would close and the land would be abandoned or turned over to sitka spruce if forestry grants were still on offer. I don’t know about lowland arable farmers but I imagine most hill farms are in the same position. The profit (if any) on turnover is miniscule and most of the money is recycled in the local area keeping people in the area and on the land. At the last survey we had 7 Red CS and 14 Amber CS and we try to do all we can to encourage more birds into the area by digging ponds and planting small area of broadleaves etc.
I think that there has been quite a bit of confusion over how the EU got us into this mess on the greening element of the Single Farm Payment especially in the press which hasn’t really grasped the main points. Far be it from me to defend Defra but they were faced with a set of conditions set by the European Commission which were arrived at after a very protracted process within the European Parliament. The weighting of 0.7 hectares on the pulses against the 5% Environmental Focus Area needed to qualify for the 30% of the subsidy element under “greening” was lobbied for by the need to have more European protein to counter the fact that GM imports are so restricted. It was totally high jacked by this lobby and has nothing to do with greening at all. It’s also worth pointing out that it is only one option among many and in no way mandatory. Other options such as cover crops, fallow and extended over wintered stubbles also are available all of which have a far greater greening contribution.
It has to be said however that the whole process has been a mess from start to finish with no real tangible environmental benefits and in that regard the RSPB is quite justified in their comments, in fact it’s hard if not impossible to find anyone on any side that has a good word to day about a system that we are going to have to live with for some time.
I think farmers are fed up now with the rash of changes to the ELS and now the new greening element; confusion about options and which scheme takes priority in what circumstances is widespread as is the fear that this is just the start of further complications as the greening element is due for review in 2016. I think that farmers will abandon what is left of the stewardship schemes after 2016 on mass leaving a massive vacuum which “greening” with all it’s one size fits all approach will fail to fill.
Maybe it’s time for a different approach and today at the Cereals event on the RSPB stand I met the new Conservation Grade staff member who is pushing hard to resurrect that scheme from where it’s been for the last decade and push it forward to fill the gap. Personally I think it’s got a lot of mileage in it so long as the RSPB get behind it and promote it to the big players in the market. 10% premium for Conservation Grade produce has got to be worth another look and I see that a certain amount of rebranding has already been done, good luck and given the opportunity and the market I cannot wait to get out of Els and into it !